Guns and the Collateral Damage That They Do

I was struck by a news story earlier this week, not only because of its importance, but because of how little air time it received in the mass media. Earlier this week, the victims of the 2011 mass shooting in Tucson, Arizona had a chance to speak to the man responsible for those hideous acts. One statement was especially powerful and it was from the husband of Gabby Giffords, now a former Congresswoman from Arizona. I apologize for the length of the following quotations, but I think it is important to read most of what Gabby’s husband said to Mr. Jared Loughner, who perpetrated the crime.
“Mr. Loughner, for the first and last time, you are going to hear directly from Gabby and me about what you took away on January 8th, 2011 and, just as important, what you did not. So pay attention. That bright and chilly Saturday morning, you killed six innocent people. Daughters and sons. Mothers and fathers. Grandparents and friends. They were devoted to their families, their communities, their places of worship.

Gabby would trade her own life to bring back any one of those you savagely murdered on that day. Especially young Christina-Taylor Green, whose high-minded ideas about service and democracy deserved a full life committed to advancing them. Especially 30-year old Gabe Zimmerman, whom Gabby knew well and cherished, and whose love for his family and his fiancee and service to his country were as deep as his loss is tragic. Especially Judge John Roll whom Gabby was honored to call a colleague and friend and from whose interminable dedication to our community and country she gained enormous inspiration. Gabby would give anything to take away the grief you visited upon the Morrises, the Schnecks, and the Stoddards – anything to heal the bodies and psyches of your other victims.

And then there is what you took from Gabby. Her life has been forever changed. Plans she had for our family and her career have been immeasurably altered. Every day is a continuous struggle to do those things she was once so very good at. Gabby is a people person: she exudes kindness, creativity, and compassion. If she were not born with the name – “Gabby” – someone would have given it to her. Now she struggles to deliver each and every sentence. Her gift for language can now only be seen in Internet videos from a more innocent time.

Gabby was an outdoor enthusiast. She was often seen rollerblading with her friend Raoul in Reed Park, hiking in Sabino Canyon, or careening down Rillito Wash Trail on her bike, as she was the night before you tried and failed to murder her. She hasn’t been to any of those places since, and I don’t know when she’ll return. There’s more. Gabby struggles to walk. Her right arm is paralyzed. She is partially blind. Gabby works harder in one minute of an hour – fighting to make each individual moment count for something – than most of us work in an entire day.

Mr. Loughner, by making death and producing tragedy, you sought to extinguish the beauty of life. To diminish potential. To strain love. And to cancel ideas. You tried to create for all of us a world as dark and evil as your own. But know this, and remember it always: You failed. Your decision to commit cold-blooded mass murder also begs of us to look in the mirror. This horrific act warns us to hold our leaders and ourselves responsible for coming up short when we do, for not having the courage to act when it’s hard, even for possessing the wrong values.” CNN

It was hard for me to read the full statement without shedding a tear. Not just for Giffords and her husband, but for all of the families who suffered at the hands of a man who should not have been able to obtain the weapons and the ammunition that he had that fateful day. I am not advocating the rescinding of our Second Amendment rights, but I am pleading for common sense in how we turn a blind eye to the damage guns do, without ever caring about what we need to do to prevent these kinds of weapons and the size of the magazines that allow a mentally disturbed individual like a Jared Loughner, to kill and maim so many innocents.

Mr. Mark Kelly, the former Astronaut who is Gabrielle Gifford’s husband, did not stop with the perpetrator of the violence, he also took all of us to task for allowing our society and our politicians to ignore the violence and death that are brought every day to this country by people carrying guns. “Your decision to commit cold-blooded mass murder also begs of us to look in the mirror. This horrific act warns us to hold our leaders and ourselves responsible for coming up short when we do, for not having the courage to act when it’s hard, even for possessing the wrong values. We are a people who can watch a young man like you spiral into murderous rampage without choosing to intervene before it is too late.

We have a political class that is afraid to do something as simple as have a meaningful debate about our gun laws and how they are being enforced. We have representatives who look at gun violence, not as a problem to solve, but as the white elephant in the room to ignore. As a nation we have repeatedly passed up the opportunity to address this issue. After Columbine; after Virginia Tech; after Tucson and after Aurora we have done nothing.

In this state we have elected officials so feckless in their leadership that they would say, as in the case of Governor Jan Brewer, “I don’t think it has anything to do with the size of the magazine or the caliber of the gun.” She went on and said, “Even if the shooter’s weapon had held fewer bullets, he’d have another gun, maybe. He could have three guns in his pocket” – she said this just one week after a high capacity magazine allowed you to kill six and wound 19 others, before being wrestled to the ground while attempting to reload. Or a state legislature that thought it appropriate to busy itself naming an official Arizona state gun just weeks after this tragedy occurred, instead of doing the work it was elected to do: encourage economic growth, help our returning veterans and fix our education system.” CNN

The idea that any politician of any stripe could downplay the destructive magnitude of these high-capacity magazines and the weapons they feed is disgusting and sad. Without all of us taking a stand against allowing people with mental disorders from owning guns and without all of us saying it is not necessary in our society to allow these high-capacity magazines, how will the violence ever end?

Is it necessary to our Freedom as a society to allow unfettered access to guns and ammunition that is only meant to be used against innocents? Can’t common sense restrictions be put into place without the NRA and politicians crying foul? Recently in Cook County, Illinois which has seen more than its share of gun violence, the President of the County Board recently attempted to stem the gun violence by advocating a tax on bullets. It may not be the best idea, but it was an attempt to find a way to stop our youth from killing each other and her efforts were met with derision and she had to drop her ammo tax idea. Chicago Tribune

It is far past time for our society to wake up and agree that not everyone should have access to guns and high-capacity magazines, isn’t it? How many more killings will our country have to endure before We decide to put an end to it. The NRA and gun manufacturers have made a great living demonizing anyone who might suggest that common sense restrictions on gun ownership are necessary and they have made sure that guns sales are going through the roof. Will it take gun violence impacting our own families before we do anything? What can be done to stem the tide of violence with guns? It is a debate that we must have! Isn’t it? Don’t we owe it to the victims and the victim’s families to finally do something to stop the killings?
Tomorrow may be too late!

292 Responses

Excellent article and timing…. You can have all the laws you want on the books…. Crazy people and people prohibited by law from even possession of a hand gun can easily obtain them….. People need to be educated…. Not prohibited…. That will solve some of the issues…. Not all of them….but some….. It is tragic…. There were many losses…. But if the person was going to obtain them regardless… How would they have been stopped?

AY,
thanks. I do disagree with your statement that prohibitions won’t help the situation. Everyone realizes that it will be impossible to prevent every bad person from getting a gun or deadly high-capacity magazines, but if we do not start trying, we will never reduce the violence. They can be stopped if we really do put a stop to the gun show exemptions and penalize manufacturers for making these high capacity magazines.
The education is always necessary, but how do you educate the politicians who are in the pocket of the NRA and gun makers? The end has to have a beginning and education alone isn’t enough.

Excellent job, raff, but I’m going to have to go with AY on the prohibition issue. History shows time and again prohibition creates black markets and increases their associated criminality – whether we are talking weed, whisky or Walther. There is a ground between outright prohibition and common sense regulation. Finding it is the problem. The problem in this particular case is also a bit different. We’re talking about a crazy person in this instance. Planning for their motives and pre-emptively taking steps to limit the damage they can do is ultimately an exercise in futility short of segregating them from society for safety concerns. If this guy hadn’t got a gun? Who is to say he wouldn’t have done something worse like steal a gasoline truck, park it nearby and rig it to blow? Who is to say he wouldn’t have killed several people with a more primitive weapon like a sword? Crazy is crazy and your solutions for protecting society from the insane are limited if you don’t wish to impose on the rights of the sane in some substantive manner. It’s the ol’ Franklin security/freedom question.

Gene and AY,
I have no problem with requiring education, but at the very least we are talking about a mentally ill person who was diagnosed prior to the incident and he was able to buy guns and high capacity magazines without a problem. Even if we make it more difficult for the Jared Loughner’s of the world to get these weapons, that would be a start. Right now we don’t even have that defense mechanism set up to protect society.
If we know they are crazy, put them on a list that is enforced. Gene, Saying that he could have gotten some other weapon to kill these people is akin to burying our heads in the sand. Make him use other means in order to make it more difficult to obtain these weapons. Make him use his sword and see how far he gets. We have more restrictions on getting a drivers license than we do in buying guns and ammo. We outlaw weapons of mass destruction,, but the weapons that have destroyed the most are still in the hands of crazy people. Gene, how do common sense restrictions on gun ownership by people who have been diagnosed as insane or with serious mental disorders impacting those who are sane?

AY,
I forgot to mention that if prohibiting guns with high capacity magazines creates a huge demand for these very same weapons, how do you square the massive gun sales these last few years when these suggested restrictions are not in place? The NRA has been blatantly fear mongering the masses by telling them that the evil black man in the White House is coming to take away their guns, when it is patently untrue. The whole idea of unfettered gun ownership is not even something the Supremes have agreed with. Even Scalia said common sense restrictions are allowable.

Very moving and persuasive piece Larry, though I’m not in favor of prohibition, except in the case of rapid-fire weapons with large ammo clips. I don’t see how their use is justified by sport or hunting. As for their use for self-protection they are impractical unless you expect a SWAT Team attack.

Gene H. I suppose you neither lock your house door or car doors for the same reasons you gave in your response? basically your argument is “They are going to do it anyway so why add deterrents to them”. I find that argument rather lacking.

Gun control resembles tax laws. Just holes everywhere.
Requiring responsibility of gun purchasers snd owners would do lots towards “educating”, ie creating another mindset towards guns in the general public mind.

I wish that I knew what we could do about our attachmemt to guns. And also about the use of the Constitution to glorify the right to own one.

Unfortunately there are mnay alternative ways to kill,
But restricting the firing of 30 rounds in less than a minute seems a good place to start.

BTW, what has happened to the batty one who shot up the Batman premiar?

Consistent common sense regulations would help in the proliferation of weapons but with all the weapons currently available, there is a huge loophole. I don’t advocate the taking of all weapons b/c I don’t trust government all that much. I see the drones and indefinite detention and warrantless wiretaps and association of any kind with an organization that tptb declare to be terrorist as a terrorist act, a presidential kill list, etc.

guns kill very few people in this country. why do we get so upset over gun deaths and not death by doctor or automobile, those 2 combined account for 200,000 deaths a year plus or minus depending on what stats you look at.

I guess a small number of deaths is a tragedy and 200,000 is a statistic.

An unarmed populace is at the mercy of any 2 bit dictator. The first thing Peisistratos did in Athens was confiscate the weapons of all men before he proclaimed himself dictator.

“Gene H. I suppose you neither lock your house door or car doors for the same reasons you gave in your response? basically your argument is “They are going to do it anyway so why add deterrents to them”. I find that argument rather lacking.”

Nice straw man you’ve got there, John, but alas completely inaccurate. I’m not saying don’t lock your doors. I’m saying don’t lock your doors and expect them to be crazy proof. Crazy is irrational and inherently unpredictable. Reasonable restrictions are the best you can do short of prohibition. Prohibition will not work and history shows this. Reasonable restrictions will never even approach 100% efficacy in dealing with the insane as a matter of psychology, ergo, you must tailor reasonable restrictions as to minimally interfere with the rights of the sane while providing the best possible defense against the insane without resorting to draconian solutions. Especially a draconian solution like prohibition that not only won’t work but create a whole new set of ancillary social problems if you tried it. Background checks? Sure. All for it. It’s a reasonable restriction and it catches some crazies. If they are diagnosed and in the system. I trust you can extrapolate out the rest of the imperfect door analogy.

I have to disagree with you here, who have said that gun restriction and prohibition does not work,,,,

Here in Sweden, we have VERY FEW gun deaths…..
and we do not have the children accidental gun deaths at all….

Now, you may say that WE are much smaller…. well that is TRUE….
HOWEVER…. if you take ALL Of Europe, we still don’t have HALF the gun deaths that the USA does…. a 1/4 of the gun deaths….

Economic IN-Equality has a LOT to do with this….

This is most likely why Canada and Switzerland do not have the same issue with gun death, even though they have quite a few gun owners….

Now think of ONE other scary instance….

11% of the adults in the US are on some sort of Psych Drug….

and roughly 37% of the households own guns….

say a male goes and gets his gun permit at 21….

Psychosis many times does not show up til about the mid 20’s….

So, we have people who, when they BUY their guns are perfectly legal to do so…..
then 5 years later their mental state is quite different from what it was when they bought their guns…..

and come on…. NOBODY here can tell me that those militia types are not a bit mentally screwed up in the head, delusional and paranoid…. they are just UNDIAGNOSED.. and many of those types already OWN GUNS….

the 2 things that are making gun ownership in the USA most dangerous are:

I’m just a little old lady–yet I’m not worried about being attacked by “a car full of Glock and AK-packing thugs.” I have sympathy for people like Eddie who live in fear of such things. It must be a burden to always have to lug around high-powered weapons for fear of being put upon by a gang of gun-toting hoodlums.

This just shows that Obama is a muslim…..(Humor!)
==================================================
OT OT OT

“IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Poll: 85 Percent of Muslim Voters Picked President Obama

(WASHINGTON, D.C., 11/9/2012) — The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, today released the results of an informal exit poll indicating that more than 85 percent of American Muslim voters picked President Obama in Tuesday’s election.

[NOTE: A similar CAIR exit poll in 2008 showed that 89 percent of American Muslim voters picked then-candidate Barack Obama. Two percent of respondents said they voted for Sen. John McCain.]

CAIR’s email survey of more than 650 American Muslim voters indicates that just four percent of respondents cast their ballots for Mitt Romney.

How do you prevent a person set on getting a gun if they really want one? I can tell you a number of 12, 13 year olds that could get you anything you wanted….. Education is the key….. Just like with knives…, what the BSA does is teach scouts responsibility….. But there are some that will still use them irresponsibly…..

Raff, Good post and a good heart. I’ve read a lot about this sentencing hearing. It got lost in the election cycle I reckon. Having dealt w/ criminally insane people I know that you can legislate against them doing harm. And, you can’t legislate against sane people using terms like “spontaeous abortion” when speaking about a US Senator. We live in a world w/ crazy people, angry people, negative people, greedy people, etc. We need to make our culture less uncivil and coarse. That doesn’t come from politicians and legislation. It comes from our hearts. It comes from parents teaching their kids to be gracious, generous and kind not nasty, greedy, negative, etc. And, anyone who has ever had children knows you teach them by modeling that positve behavior, not just preaching it.

Great post, raff. I agree with you. The gender gap looms very large on this issue and you are on the right side again. I think legislation is needed, and I hope not too many innocents have to die before something is done. I never thought we would come as far as we did in the past couple of years with regards to gay marriage so I think there is hope.

You can’t legislate away the fact that Mitch McConnell making a good case for retroactive abortions is funny if you possess a sense of humor either.

Argument by non-sequtur. You can legislate against crazy people doing harm but they are crazy so you can’t enforce it with anything approaching 100% efficacy. That isn’t the Nirvana fallacy, it’s simply recognizing the nature of the crazy beast inhibits predictive solutions. Creating such an enforcement regime would require a massive retooling of the mental healthcare systems in this country and a massive rewrite of our privacy protections under the 14th Amendment vis a vis healthcare, e.g. more erosion of civil rights in the name of “security”. Crazy people with always find ways to harm others and themselves even if you turned the whole nation into a pscyh ward. Gravity and pointy objects have been killing people a lot longer than guns, but a Nerf world would sure put a dent in that practice. I don’t see people getting behind that solution. Solutions must be rational and to the scale of the problem. Part of the scale of the problem in dealing with the insane is they are irrational and unpredictable and as such our pre-emptive options are inherently limited. It rapidly becomes a game of diminishing returns on the freedom/security scale.

Dredd…
He is NEVER getting out…..
there is a special provision for people they deem too dangerous to
release from jail…. So, they can keep him as long as they want and feel that he is a danger…. and being that he is not crazy… and that he is just a whinny racist POS…. he will be there for life, I am sure…

You may think that 23 years is too light a sentence…. and I would most likely agree….

HOWEVER… Norway, has the lowest recidivism rates in the world…. MUCH lower than the USA….

The USA has a difficult time distinguishing between JUSTICE and REVENGE……

“Not surprisingly, there are gender and ideological gaps on this issue, with more than six in ten women and two thirds of self-described liberals supporting major restrictions or a complete ban, compared to just 34% of men and 36% of self-described conservatives,” says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. “And major restrictions on guns are most popular in urban areas and in the Northeast than in the rest of the country.” Just because I am currently living in Texas does not mean I think like one, Nick.

I’m still sick as hell… just waiting to see my specialist at the end of the month….
I’ve had the bad luck of getting a specialist that is not in the office very often…
This is the FIRST time I have had an illness, where I have had to wait more than a week for an appointment…

I just wanted to clear that up for those people who would want to blame it on the system here…. :-)

AY, There are pariah’s everywhere. We all need to realize, Chicago has the toughest gun laws in the country and the highest murder rate. It’s not too different than the drug war. How has it worked so far trying to keep drugs out of our country? Well, look on a smaller scale and how well have the toughest gun laws in the US worked keeping guns out of the hands of criminals in Chicago. Law abiding citizens are unarmed and gunned down by people who will not ever obey any law. The culture needs to change and that is not done via legislation, it’s done in the home, school, church, etc. That’s the way you win on drugs also, via working on the demand, not the supply.

To all the lawyers out there who believe that the Second Amendment protects unregulated ownership of guns, I suggest you read it again very slowly. I have the same advice for certain Supreme Court justices who claim to be literalists and originalists, they should read it slowly aloud and spell out the words “well regulated militia”. The founders did not insert useless words in their documents. It is time to regulate guns of all sorts, require registration and prohibit the civilian ownership of large magazines.

Don’t tell me you need a 90 bullet magazine to shoot quail or deer. I don’t want to hear to it.

When civilization came to a western town the first thing that happened is that the sheriff took weapons off the street. Sounds like a good idea to me. Unfortunately as we seem to be doing in many things, the US is marching backward in time so that some people can hold the rest of us hostage to their dangerous ideas about guns and science, among other things. It is time for civilization to win one and it will be good for human beings too.

AY, Since the dairy[and beer] industry is so powerful in Wi., up until the sixties, you could not buy yellow margarine. It was white and looked like Crisco, which people just wouldn’t eat.. So, Cheeseheads would go to Illinois on “oleo runs.” Bob Uecker jokes he was conceived when his folks were in Zion, IL. on an oleo run.

Just go tó the ER at Söder Sjukhuset.
Or wait until tomorrow and go to Capio Vårdcentral in Ringen before 10AM (Gotgatan and Ringvägen) to the left inside the door from Ringvagen. Sign up with them, and get immmediate short time with double qualified general practitioner the same morning.

Yuu’ll get a specialist time in less than 2 weeks, or a blue light to the ER at SÖS.

Idealist… Yeah I would usually do that…
BUT.. I have to have surgery…
and If I do it by going to the ER… I will not have my choice of Dr’s…
and they like to keep people here after Gull Bladder Surgery
for about 4-5 days… :-(
And truth be told…. I don’t want to spend 4 days in the hospital by
myself…. :-\ Last time I was in the hospital for 2 days.. I was going CRAZY.. I HATE being in the hospital….

So, I am hoping to talk my specialist into doing the least invasive surgery and seeing if they can let me come home after 2 days…

I think upper crust is one way to describe them…. But I think from a marketing stand point… It’s more the “social economics”…. And scale is the more appropriate word to use….. I stand to be corrected….

you have to have an ATF Stamp for an automatic/assault weapon. A semi-automatic rifle is another man’s “the finest battle implement ever made.” That was Patton on the M1 Garand. The civilian marksmanship program provides an M1 Garand to people who take the course. I think it uses an 8-10 round clip and you can reload pretty quickly.

Personally, I would not hunt with an AK-47, I would use a British Enfield in cal. 303 or maybe a Mauser in cal. 8mm. What accurate weapons they both are. I dont think many people hunt with them, they are for shooting out on the farm.

The majority of gun owners are law abiding citizens who use guns for sport and personal protection.

Gene,
I’d settle for 50% efficiency. That would be 50% better than it is now.
Swarthmore,
My son just took a job in Houston and starts at the end of the month. His company is up near the airport. Any suggestions for an area to live in for a young single man(with a girl friend) just out of the Marines?
nick,
I am not talking about getting rid of all guns, just try to keep them out of the hands of mentally ill people. And the high capacity magazines are just not needed. You are right about Chicago having tough gun laws, but I do not think they are the toughest after the Supremes got done.

Tho, I know that somebody is going to come along and say that it was because Gun ownership was already a right…. so the Founding fathers omitted this part as to not be superfluous…

I could not agree with you more on this…. HOWEVER.. there is just NO way that the NRA would allow this….

I’ve found that arguing with NRA/ Second Amendment types, is like playing chess with a pigeon; You can set up your strategy perfectly, but the pigeon will just knock over the pieces, crap on the board, strut around claiming victory…

That’s why I’m asking…. Hobby is pretty much downtown….. And Bush is way north… Towards the woodlands….. It’d be really ridiculous to set up camp downtown and have to drive 30 plus miles in brain drain traffic….

Swarthmore and AY,
It is Bush airport, I believe. The one pretty far north. Not too far from the Woodlands, if I remember correctly. You are right. I may have to go down there when he moves to make sure he has an extra driver. I am not sure the Rangers will allow me into the state!

There are plenty of rentals in that area…. Mostly gated apartments….. There are great deals on houses to rent….. Raff, if he finds an apt or such do a FOIA with the local police, sheriffs department as well as constipels…. You can find out what kind of activities have been reported….. In that area you have Harris and Montgomery Counties….. And a whole slew of locals…. Some areas have issues some don’t….

rafflaw, The Bush airport is fairly far out of the city…..not much for a young person close buy. He might get culture shock although Houston is much more international than DFW. My husband has a young single man from Park Ridge working for him now and he is struggling and wants to move back. If your son brings his girl friend, it might be easier.

If I may add…. Not only should they do as you suggest… BUT, I think a mental evaluation every 2 years for people who are registered gun owners as well…. That would have avoided a FEW of the mass shootings we have had….

and as for your last paragraph….

“Unfortunately as we seem to be doing in many things, the US is marching backward in time so that some people can hold the rest of us hostage to their dangerous ideas about guns and science, among other things. It is time for civilization to win one and it will be good for human beings too.”

— unfortunately that is so true…
The USA really needs to catch up to the rest of the western wealthy countries… as it stands between the “war against women” the war against science” YOu have a LARGE lobbying effort going on there… not for the betterment of the country…. but, rather for power…

Changing the lobbying laws would go a long way to help this… as would
regulating our Representatives and how much they make for working in Government…. and what kinds of investments they can have as public servants…..

We need to vote in Representatives who care about the USA… People who are educated and want better for their fellow Americans….

NOT who want to get rich and powerful while being in office, rather than doing their job of making the USA a better place to live….

Woodlands is fine for raising a family if you like those kinds of places but not for a young person. As you can see AY and I don’t agree on much of anything. We have different views on everything from child raising to guns and nearly everything in between.

SWM, Those cities being blue should not surprise you! Just look @ a red/blue map in all the states. With a few exceptions cities are blue, rural is red, and suburbs swing back and forth. This is pretty basic although when pundits talk about black white, Hispanic, male, female, etc.voting patterns they hardly ever talk about this obvious fact looking them in the eye. I don’t know why..maybe it’s just not sexy? Why do you think these cities surprised you?

The woodlands is a nice area for a young man. It is true I realize I don’t have to give my children money to talk with me. You got that right, I think if a person wants a gun and they meet the requirements then they need education on the proper use and safety. You got it on the rest, there is no substitute for common sense…..

You know, part of the appalling romance with the big assault weapons comes from our national psycho-stories about being overrun with domestic terrorists hell bent on taking away our basic freedoms. There have, of course, been some high-profile cases of that actually happening (Ruby Ridge, Waco, Move, some others I have forgotten) but that is usually done by the government itself and you can’t buy more weapons than the government has. NOBODY can justify owning machine-guns for personal use. You can’t hunt with them; you destroy the prey you’re trying to bring down! Why just prevent insane people from getting automatic assault weapons? What SANE PERSON would ever want any?

And as to the observation that people can get guns illegally anyway, true, but people can also get drugs illegally; that hasn’t stopped the government from outlawing them has it?

Now, turning to important matters: “I wish we could outlaw orange cheese!”

If its for a gall bladder try to get it done laporoscopically. That is the least invasive and even though my heart was failing when I had mine taken out, it took less than two hours and I was able to leave the hospital the next morning. If I did’t have the heart issue then, I probably wouldn’t have had to stay overnight.

SWM, Have you seen the movie, Bernie? It’s a true story about a murder in east Texas. The director has many local people being interviewed..not actors, locals; including Matthew Mcauhney’s[sp?] mom. It’s a good movie and wear some Depends when this one straight shooter sitting in a diner talks about people in different parts of the state, you’ll pee your pants.

Gurl, What MikeS just said. I had mine out a couple years ago. I had several attacks. Being diabetic my surgeon strongly urges yanking it before an infection hit. Gurl, it was a piece o’cake. If you wait until it’s an emergency then they do it the old fashioned way, cutting through stomach muscles. Lapro is day surgery. Regular 3-5 day hospital.

I keep seeing statements of the nature of “you don’t need X (X == high capacity mags, full auto weapons, etc.) for hunting or typical self defense against a robber so you shouldn’t have it.”

The whole point of the 2nd amendment and all real arguments for it revolve around self defense against ALL entities; be it individuals or government.

The most important reason behind advocating an armed populace is not simply to create a “more polite” society or to discourage criminals, although the latter is certainly a benefit, is the horribly vast asymmetry in power between individuals and their government.

In a worst case scenario, only an extremely well armed populace can ensure that last safety check against the emergence of a truly oppressive regime should all other mechanisms fail. It’s the ultimate hedge against this section of the possibility space that exists for ALL governments, however well designed at the start (as they are complex systems whose evolution cannot ultimately be predicted with certainty).

For most of history, political organizations and eventually state governments have been extremely repressive. It is only in the modern era of the past few hundred years that there has been a trend against that (but by numerous measures across the world, you can see different aspects of freedom, defined in the negative sense, on the retreat from their peaks). History has never ended, even if a lot of people in the west might complacently think so.

THAT is the reason to argue for the right to bear arms by all law abiding citizens who desire it; to keep that last safety valve in check just in case the worst comes to pass. Because while the probability that it might be necessary is slim, the enormous damage that arises should that scenario come to pass gives it a high enough expected value of net harm that it makes up for the tragedies that will ultimately happen with certain probabilistic regularity when a populace is allowed to be armed and a a psycho does something psychotic (which leads to the whole other problem of how do you tell a person is insane enough to strip them of their rights and freedoms before they…you know…do something insane enough that we know they should be stripped of their rights and freedoms).

It’s important to keep in mind that no set of regulations works in a vacuum; they all have a percent effectiveness non-negligibly less than 100%, with corresponding opportunity costs both from direct enforcement and the unforeseen (almost always negative) consequences. That’s the full argument against prohibitionist views; not just that “people will do it anyway,” but that either:

A: “activity X isn’t something that is even the business of other people to interfere with” (as I would argue with personal drug use) or that

B: “so many people will engage in activity Y anyway, in spite of any laws outlawing activity Y, that the cost of enforcing an innately partially effective prohibition on Y would lead to such great direct ($) and indirect costs on society in both money and loss of freedom for all that any attempt to prohibit Y yields a net harm”, which again to go to the drug war parallel, trying to stop people from getting high has only had a modest impact on the percentages but cost billions of dollars outright and led to the almost complete corrosion of 4th/5th/6th even 9th/10th amendment protections and the biggest (% wise) prison population on earth.

So combining those two arguments, the second against prohibitionism in general and the first relating to the specific reasons to allow a heavily armed populace to exist, you have my reasons as to why there should be a VERY high bar for any general restriction vis-a-vis law abiding individuals arming themselves; and the prevention of statistically unusual tragedies does not meet that bar in my opinion.

If they did not amend for Gun ownership….
then, just as you have a Doctor sign a note to clear you for work…
You could have a mental professional clear you for your gun license….

I truly believe that had there been a mental health check up every 2 years
these mass shootings would not have happened….

and for many of you who say that those laws would affect law abiding citizens…. fact is… they are law abiding, until they aren’t….

Too many people, who have had NO record…. and have never even gotten a traffic ticket, just SNAP one day… fight with neighbor…. run home get their gun and shoot…. Fight with wife…. go to bedroom grab the gun and shoot…..
Sitting in traffic after having a bad day… reach in glove compartment and shoot…..

I am not sure what the numbers are… BUT, I know there are quite a few of these kinds of shootings….

as for Chicago… The problem as I mentioned before, economic in-equality….
when some people feel hopeless… they turn to crime…

For most of history, political organizations and eventually state governments have been extremely repressive

—————-

Then they EVOLVED…..

People that use this Second Amendment argument, that it is to deter government from Tyranny…. Then YOU don’t trust in the Constitution….

The US Government is set up in such a way that this is just NOT possible….

The USA is in such a place that NOBODY is going to Attack, invade and try to overtake our mainland….. NOT that any country would want it…. Too big… too many people…. NOT enough pay off to invade our mainland… and NOBODY has EVERY tried in 200+ years….. Japan bombed us cuz they were mad, yes I know it was more complex than that….. However, it was NOT because they wanted our mainland…. and Hitler threatened… BUT, that was just not feasible….

If all you do is distrust the government in the country where you live, WHY would you enjoy living in a so called Free country, that you do not trust????

I’m sorry, that is not freedom to always fear government….

This has absolutely NO logic…..

and further more… If having an armed Citizenry made a country more safe…. the USA would be the safest country in the world…. and yet, It is one of the LEAST…..

I have said this before, and will say it again, since there are newer commenters reading. Different parts of the country have different experiences with firearms. Federal law and the Constitution applies to everyone equally, and what works in one locality will never work in another.

Secondly, the Second Amendment will never be repealed. Any politician who proposes to do so might as well write their own political obituary, because they would never get a repeal out of committee, and they will never be re-elected to public office.

I have a suggestion for anyone proposing to seize guns from private citizens. We appoint that person the gun seizure czar and their first job assignment will be to go into the hills and hollers of the Appalachians to tell the local folks you have come for their guns. BTW, before you go, make sure your affairs are in order, but your family can forget funeral plans. Your body will never be found.

From a psychological point of view, telling people they cannot have something is….well….what could possibly go wrong? The 18th Amendment worked really well. Not! And look what happened in Ohio and Florida this week when the state government tried to suppress votes. Do you think there would have been people standing in line six to nine hours to vote unless they had been told they cannot vote?

Also, a pistol or rifle is surprisingly easy to make with basic machine shop and blacksmithing skills. Black powder is easy to make as well, and it is a heck of a lot more explosive than smokeless powder. The key to high quality black powder is the charcoal, and charcoal from the willow tree works best.

Things started to change in the 1970s as various right-wing groups coalesced to challenge gun control, overturning laws in state legislatures, Congress and the courts. But Chief Justice Warren Burger, a conservative appointed by Richard Nixon, described the new interpretation of the Second Amendment in an interview after his tenure as “one of the greatest pieces of fraud–I repeat the word fraud–on the American public by special-interest groups that I have ever seen in my lifetime.”

Raff,
I understand, but given that mental health services are the red-headed stepchild in the third party payer system, that is not going to happen anytime soon. First of all, it is hard enough to get people into the system, but if they knew it could cost them their guns, it would become impossible to get treatment for those who need it most. Since going to a psychiatrist, psychologist or clinical social worker is a voluntary act, they cannot be compelled. It is hard enough to get a civil commitment for those who need it.

Finally, confidentiality laws are among the strictest on the books–a HIPAA violation can cost up to $50,000 (plus possible jail time) per incident. Additionally, confidentiality provisions are embedded into the ethical code of all mental health specialists. Violate confidentiality at the risk of losing your license to practice. I simply do not see a way around that…it is a conundrum.

The whole tracking system is piecemeal at best. One of my former “clients” was wanted on murder charges, but was released after being arrested on a traffic violation because the police department did not get the report on him in time. He killed again after that.

raff,
As the old saying goes, the devil is in the details. I can give you several dozen reasons why a tracking system for the mentally ill will not work. We can start with personal privacy. The average person who takes an antidepressant is a very low risk person, so do we want to raid grandma’s house for any guns that might be present? What is the cutting score between a person with an emotional or mental health problem that is no danger to society and one who is over the line? Who does the tracking and can they be trusted. Psychopathy is a personality disorder, and is not an Axis I disorder. Do we want to include personalty disorders in our list? If so, how, because most people with personality disorders never come into the mental health system? Some of the most dangerous killers I have come into contact with had personality disorders, not an Axis I major mental illness.

Did you know that schizophrenics have among the lowest rates of being dangerous to others, when compared to the non-schizophrenic population in general?

The logistical and ethical problems inherent in the proposal are, quite literally, insurmountable.

Could you have interpreted what he was saying any more incorrectly? If one trusts in the Constitution, they understand the terms it was written under (like, oh, in Revolutionary America, when we gained our freedom from the British…a repressive entity. Weird!) Does that make any sense? It’s easy to make the conclusion that the forefathers did not want this country falling into the same kind of problem that gave birth to America.

“If all you do is distrust the government in the country where you live, WHY would you enjoy living in a so called Free country, that you do not trust????”

…wut…? This is mind numbing. If you inexplicably trust a government/corporate entity or what have you, I don’t quite know what to tell you. You are exactly the problem with this country. Do as you’re told, never question – DON’T LOOK AT THE MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN! Let’s continue with that analogy, shall we? We now live in a place where drones are seriously being considered for constant surveillance. Look at those drones as being the flying monkeys of Oz. Do you see what I’m saying? I colored it really pretty and inside the lines, just for you.

“I’m sorry, that is not freedom to always fear government….”

WRONG WRONG WRONG. Freedom is EXACTLY that. Freedom to question anything and everything. Trust who, or what you want to. Are you missing this line of LOGIC…

Speaking of…

“This has absolutely NO logic…..”

I have shown you why there is logic in it. If you need further demonstration, I will be HAPPY to do so!

“and further more… If having an armed Citizenry made a country more safe…. the USA would be the safest country in the world…. and yet, It is one of the LEAST…..”

Oh, typical liberal petulance. “I’m afraid of weapons, so nobody should have them!” I’m not exactly what you would call a conservative, either. So don’t even start barking up that tree.

Look, there are (probably) dozens of studies out there proving that an armed citizenry has less crime. Do your homework, and have an open mind. Look at it like this: women who fight back against their attackers (would-be rapists), are FAR less likely to actually be raped. Criminals prey on the weak. People without means to protect themselves are…weak!

OS, I agree with you. The personality disorders are very stable and compared to people who have to deal with them, they come off fine. If you have contact with one of them and you’re normal, in a year or two you’ll be in the shrink’s office. Then HE’ll have a gun and YOU won’t and too bad for your sorry rear end. :!:

First, raff; no I never said anyone SHOULD be doing anything I just want people to not be prevented from having the opportunities to do things (i.e. arm themselves reasonably).

Second, as to the rocket launcher ad absurdum argument, you kind of ignored formula B that I presented: one could easily make the case that it is easy to prohibit rocket launchers (they are expensive and rare), the damage potential pre worst case scenario is far higher than acceptable (which changes which expected utility/damage value is higher) and that also you wouldn’t really need them pre-worst case scenario anyway (all around the world determined people with AK47’s have been more than enough to cause trouble). So therefore using what I actually stated in my post as my own reasoning you can make the case for it, like I just did.

Further, I’m talking in the space of all possibilities; I said nothing about how close or far away I thought “the revolution” was, just that it was another, more important reason for an armed citizenry to exist in general. So yeah I think you missed my point on that one, but these are turn based short forum post so that happens.

Seattle…where to begin. Did I say anything about the United States ever being invaded? No. In fact, I AGREE with you about the defensibility of the United States and the impossibility of foreign occupation, which is why I think our bumbling attempts at empire are idiotic and that we have a defense budget many times what we should need.

But that is where our agreement ends. As to what you said we are not a “free” country, we are a “free-ER” country; more free in most respects than most, but hardly completely free. Would a free country imprison people for years because of what they put in their bodies? Would a free country spy on its citizens? Would a free country be chipping away at freedom of speech? Would a free country have gutted the 4th amendment in the pursuit of illegal substances? I could go on but I think I made my point. The fact is, freedom is only TRULY threatened by the government because they are the ones supposed to enforce the law; government is an amoral machine, nothing more. If bad laws get on the books, and many have, the enforcement of those laws becomes oppression. You break those laws, the infinitely more powerful than you leviathan is able to confiscate your earnings and/or throw you in prison for up to the rest of your life or even kill you.

And also, the idea that governments have permanently “evolved” into a freer state is laughable as NOTHING is permanent; every empire in the world has eventually crumbled. The advanced (not very free, but still advanced) Rome collapsed and gave birth to the far worse dark ages. The relatively enlightened Muslim world of the turn of the first millennium recessed into the fundamentalist oppressive mess it largely has been until this day. Etc. The moral of the story is that progress is NEVER safe; the human quest for freedom and advancement is a Sisyphean struggle that requires constant continued exertion lest the rock roll back downhill. Stop for a rest and the default low energy solutions of stupid, lazy and instinctive will return and take as much of that progress back from you as they can. You just reiterated the logical fallacy I mentioned in my first post about all those after the Cold War ended who thought the end of history arrived. Seemingly right for a few years right after but, whoops oh look, things changed.

And as to the other discussion that has arisen, that’s the ultimate problem with trying to screen just based on “mental instability;” what qualifies as mental instability when the field of psychiatry is such that they used to classify homosexuality as a mental disorder? Yes previous bouts of violence can obviously be screened for and red flagged. But what about when one gets to borderline cases where a person is just very anti-social but never been violent? What if they just act strange? What IS acting strange? The false positives will pile up very quickly, and those false positives carry a tremendous cost of costing people their liberties unjustly. So one has to be VERY careful.

I’m thinking that 99.99% of gun versus drone battles end with a win marked for the drone.

Civilians could make a mess. We could take on a lot of cops in a revolutionary situation. We could even irritate a few soldiers. But no armaments available to civilians compare to tanks, drones, helicopter gunships and stealth fighter/bombers. None. The only chance a civilian uprising has is to engage in guerilla warfare – which is a recipe for martial law and a military dictatorship. A head on assault ends in a military dictatorship just that much quicker. Any other result from that scenario that doesn’t end in a rapid military dictatorship would require a substantive portion of the force rebel and fight on the civilian side. And by substantive, I mean they’d have to be capable of full spectrum warfare – air, sea, ground, space. Also, that scenario still likely ends in military dictatorship because that is what history tells us about popular uprisings where the military supports (allegedly) the people.

The 2nd Amendment provides some deterrent against governmental action, but even compared to 25 years ago? It’s not even a remotely fair fight. Anyone who thinks otherwise has either a vast over estimation of their abilities or a vast underestimation of what modern armaments are capable of, possibly both.

Now while I recognize this value of the 2nd Amendment, I do keep it in proportion to the firepower differential.

JAG’s observation is essentially correct. If the military comes a knockin’? They knock real hard.

By the way…. if the Big Pharma lobby and I should add the Private Prison Lobby, If they were not so big…. The people would be more educated on the drugs that are illegal….
and MORE people would vote for their legalization…
and stop voting for tough sentences for smoking a joint…..

HOWEVER, Big Pharma and all of its power BLOCKS people from learning he truth about many drugs… so that they can make MORE money…
Same with the Prison Lobby….

We NEED to stop fearing government and start fearing the REAL threat to our freedom and democracy….
While so many are busy being afraid of the government…. and face it.. many are…..
FEW are afraid of Corporations….. and are voting the very people that are allowing the Corporations to take over….

gurlinseattle,
You are realistic in your assessment of the likelihood of another civil war erupting any time soon is remote, but let’s look at history, beginning with right now. In Afghanistan, a ragtag bunch of illiterate sheepherders are making life beyond miserable for the military of the world’s greatest superpower. Those same sheepherders and farmers virtually bankrupted the Soviet Union, and in the 19th century, beat back the greatest superpower of that century, the British Empire.

Think Vietnam. The US military did not do so well against that insurgency either.

Think the American Revolution, the conflict out of which the Second Amendment emerged. Simple farmers, frontiersmen and businessmen, led by a well-to-do farmer from Virgina, defeated the worlds largest standing army.

If we do not learn anything else, we should learn from Katrina and Sandy that we are only one natural disaster away from chaos. Study carefully the history of Easter Island. When they cut down the forests, their primary natural resource, the indigenous people turned on each other. We are going to run out of oil, possibly in our lifetime or in the lifetime of our children. What happens then?

When we look at the painful pictures of the desperate people impacted by Sandy, still without utilities, one has to wonder how many people are able and ready to deal with an even more widespread disaster. I am fortunate in that I have guns, know how to use them, and if I need more guns, I know how to make them and can make my own ammunition. I also make knives and can make swords if I want to. There are three swords and one bow in the gun cabinet. I can live off the land. Our century-old house is equipped with oil lamps and we have a coal chute. We have a cellar and a smokehouse almost a hundred years old. I am not a survivalist, but am thankful I grew up as a country boy who learned a lot of primitive living skills.

No one knows what the future holds, so I am not quite ready to turn in my guns.

Just to follow up on Jason’s comments. Large capacity magazines are seldom, if ever, used in crimes. When they have been used, the biggest fault with them usually show up. They are heavy, unwieldy and prone to jam. It requires a very powerful spring to shove a large number of round uphill through the magazine, and as the magazine empties, the rounds are prone to jam as the receiver cycles. Removing a large capacity magazine and inserting a new one also takes longer than it takes to change a standard size magazine. In short, they are a royal pain in the butt, and extremely inefficient.

As has been pointed out, a person who spends a few hours on the range practicing with standard capacity magazines can change them and put more bullets downrange than someone with a tricky to use large capacity magazine. One of the best illustrations of this is this video of Travis Thomasie, former Army shooting instructor and who now runs a shooting school for civilians and law enforcement.

This is Cpl. Travis Thomasie when he was still in the Army, demonstrating how to use a pistol to put a lot of bullets downrange. Believe me, he can get off more than thirty shots in less than thirty seconds. This is a standard issue pistol with a standard off-the-shelf magazine.

Jason,
The tracking can and should be done by following the guns. One weapons are purchased legally, the system could be set up to track the person purchasing them. Especially when you have someone purchasing the high capacity magazines or ammo in large quantities. All i keep reading in most of the responses is that it would be too tough to do. Of course, we will never see if it can be done, if we never try.
OS,
Amazing demonstrations! Thankfully most civilians can’t reload that quickly and efficiently. Time to hit the hay. Buenos Noches.

I imagine for some people a rocket launcher would be fun to play with, collectible and potentially profitable so should their puchase be legal? Tanks also perhaps would meet the same pleasurable criteria, why not?

raff, you say, “The assault weapons ban wasn’t based on cosmetics. It took a dangerous weapon off the streets. How is that not effective?”

**************************************

First of all, a true assault weapon has a fire selector switch which converts the weapon from a single shot (one shot with each trigger pull) to fully automatic that continues to fire as long as the trigger is held down. Those have been illegal since 1934. Private citizens can own a fully auto weapon, but they are rare, horrendously expensive, require a deep background check by the FBI and there is a tax stamp. They are not transferable and cannot be sold unless the buyer has qualified for a Class III license as well.

What is called an “assault weapon” is purely cosmetic. The heart and soul of any firearm is the receiver. That is the part that accepts a round from the magazine, puts it in the chamber and also contains the trigger, hammer and firing pin. Here is a short video which demonstrates there is no difference at all between an ordinary deer rifle and a so-called assault rifle. You might want to fast forward to about 6:02.

justagurl.
The secret is practice. The difference between Travis Tomasie and an ordinary person is that Travis spends hours practicing. I can do what he does and so can my daughter. Perhaps I am a fraction of a second slower, but then I do everything slower these days. My daughter has the eye hand coordination of a safecracker and is blinding fast in all kinds of tasks that require speed with the hands and fingers.

Mike,
I was thinking about people who live in the mountains when I wrote what I did. Despite the best efforts of the government, there are meth labs and moonshine stills all in these hills. The government has not been able to eradicate them despite the expenditure of vast sums of money and resources. Too many hiding places. Practically everybody up here hunts. My daughter in law’s nephew just killed a six point buck with a .270 deer rifle. He is six years old. People who live in the mountains of Alaska and western USA would also pose a real problem for law enforcement and the military in case of an insurgency. They would not be sitting ducks.

Mike,
With all the proper paperwork you can own a fully operational tank, and there are several people who have huge collections of tanks and tracked vehicles they restore and play with. You can also own a cannon or rocket launcher.

By the same token, you can own a fighter plane. Some guy up in the Midwest has acquired a Mig-29, which is one of the most advanced fighter planes in the world. Just keeping that thing in fuel would require one to have a lot of spare change around. There are a number of P-51 Mustangs in private hands, as well as jet fighters.

rafflaw-
“Jason,
The assault weapons ban wasn’t based on cosmetics. It took a dangerous weapon off the streets. How is that not effective?”

No, it was based on cosmetics, things such as bayonet lugs, pistol grips, flash hiders, etc. Gun manufacturers were able to get around most of the restrictions by making slight cosmetic changes that had no effect on the functioning of the weapon. Only a handful of specific weapons were banned. Also, there is no evidence that the AWB had any effect on crime.

rafflaw-
“Jason,
The tracking can and should be done by following the guns. One weapons are purchased legally, the system could be set up to track the person purchasing them. Especially when you have someone purchasing the high capacity magazines or ammo in large quantities.”

Again, why “high capacity” magazines when we know they are rarely used in crime? What is the definition of high capacity? And what does buying a large amount of ammo have to do with anything? People who are into the hobby buy in bulk because you save a ton of money. The amounts of ammo purchased by the Colorado theater idiot aren’t indicative of criminal intent, he couldn’t carry that much to the crime if he wanted to. Recreational shooters can easily blow through 1000 or more rounds in an afternoon. Get some friends together and it can go way up from there.

“All i keep reading in most of the responses is that it would be too tough to do. Of course, we will never see if it can be done, if we never try.”

Aside from how tough, it won’t work. You are proposing things that won’t affect crime in any measurable sense.

justagurlinseattle-
“You are talking PRO Shooters…. Your average citizen is not even going to be able to do what these guys can do….”

An average citizen is not going to do what Jerry Miculek does, no. But an average citizen can easily reload enough times to fire far far more than the 30 rounds per minute that was cited earlier

Mike Spindell-
“Jason,
I imagine for some people a rocket launcher would be fun to play with, collectible and potentially profitable so should their puchase be legal?”

That wasn’t the issue. She asked what possible reason could any sane person have to want automatic weapons. I gave several. And their legality is academic. They’re legal and aren’t a problem.

“Tanks also perhaps would meet the same pleasurable criteria, why not?”

Tanks are legal to own.

Otteray Scribe-
“First of all, a true assault weapon has a fire selector switch which converts the weapon from a single shot (one shot with each trigger pull) to fully automatic that continues to fire as long as the trigger is held down. Those have been illegal since 1934.”

I’m confused, because that’s not correct, but you seem to correct yourself next….

“Private citizens can own a fully auto weapon, but they are rare, horrendously expensive, require a deep background check by the FBI and there is a tax stamp. They are not transferable”

Not true. They are transferable, it’s just another round of pain in the ass bureaucracy.

“and cannot be sold unless the buyer has qualified for a Class III license as well.”

Jason, I am bone tired from driving a third of the way across the country non stop last night. I know the differences. I was thinking of a Class III FFL, which is different from being vetted by the Feds. That was what I meant. You cannot just sell your Thompson or other full auto weapon to anyone unless they have all their required paperwork, or both seller and buyer would…..let’s say….fall into disfavor with various Federal agencies.

Now with that, I think I am going to go collapse. I have a full day tomorrow and I am in the Eastern time zone…it is almost 2:00 AM here. G’night all.

============
“Mike Spindell
1, November 11, 2012 at 11:34 pm
Good article Mark. As others have already said though, they’re crazy and they’ve got guns. They have proved with this outburst that they’re not in favor of Democracy and they really could be persuaded to revolt. Sounds like treason to me.”
=============

Having lots of guns does not mean you have the courage to use them. Some stats on Republican volunteers for
military service might be interesting.

Interesting article, but it fails to get to the root of weapons or Second Amendment debate. A few years ago, the tv program dateline did a report about how the US Government & Corporations (Boeing, Lockheed Martin, etc.), beginning as early as the 1930s, supplies every country in the world with weapons, including middle east and communist countries (there is also an article about it too). These same weapons, as one US soldier discovered after he detained ‘islamic terrorists in Iraq’, are being used to kill American soldiers. Should we be surprised about the ‘chickens coming home to roost?’

Why not a post on Alcohol and all the damage it does? How about motor vehicles and the lives they take and the property damage they cause? How about all the lives lost to medical error? Any one of these will take more lives than guns. And how about a post on the million or more home robberies that are stopped by armed home owners? How about what up the 27,000 laws on the books that purport to control fire arms. The real reason politicians want to control fire arms is if law-abing citizens don’t have firearms, then the politicians can become dictators.
Oh, and to add to RWL’s post above, How about a post on our guv supplying arms to naro-terrorist groups?

Even if Birdhot spreads out wide and hits someone it is not collateral damage. A sprain in the wrist from a high powered pistol after it goes off is collateral damage. Those incidents are few and far between. Learn to shoot from the hip and engage in dead reckoning.

We have a lot more regulation about owning motor vehicles than we do about owning guns. We have a lot more police out there checking you while you drive than checking you while you carry. And I will bet that if you got into your vehicle and ran over some pedestrian in Sanford, Florida some drizzly evening because you thought he was suspicious, but then claimed you had to run him over and it wasn’t your fault, you’d be arrested on the spot. AND you wouldn’t be allowed to drive home, either.

I am sick and tired of people vilifying guns just because a Congresswoman was shot. For some strange reason, her wound is of greater importance than the thousands killed every year by guns. Taking guns away isn’t the answer. The problem is the fact that MORE guns are needed. Had someone been carrying a gun at that supermarket that day, they could have taken out Loughner before he killed as many as he did. After Alexander Hamilton was killed by Aaron Burr in 1804 by a GUN, they didn’t get rid of the 2nd amendment did they? Giffords herself is an advocate of guns. Are you all forgetting that?

“I was thinking about people who live in the mountains when I wrote what I did. Despite the best efforts of the government, there are meth labs and moonshine stills all in these hills.”

OS,

I know you were I was just extending the point. I was rather tired myself last night, but I know how bone tired you must have been. For old folks like us, no matter what our driving skills, 12 hours is a nice chunk of driving. I extended the point because while I think a popular revolution that succeeds is impossible due to the overwhelming power of our military, that doesn’t mean that it can’t continue for many years in guerrilla mode in places like your home and the other parts of the country you mentioned. It would come down to how much wholesale destruction the government being revolted against is willing to inflict. However, the lessons of WWII regarding the ability of air power alone to turn the tide are oft forgotten. It always comes down to soldiers on the ground and the terrain they’re fighting in.

This brings me though to why I believe in the need for the Second Amendment being interpreted as it has been. I think the interpretation is valid and that the Founding Fathers actually meant that individuals should be allowed weaponry. The context of their time and the state of armament was such that rebelling against tyranny was feasible. They had the foresight to understand that any governmental system could turn tyrannic and believed the people should have the means to overthrow it. It would have been impossible for them to envision how far technology would advance in the following hundreds of years. With that technology rebellion becomes far less achievable. Just think of a country where there are cameras everywhere monitoring the actions of its citizens. Listening devices that can hear through walls. The technological ability to monitor a citizenry and thus put down rebellion is probably not even fully know to us.

As I said though, in rural areas, a guerrilla insurrection could last indefinitely and there are many rural areas in the U.S. I am firmly against the idea of violent revolution because my sense of them is as Gene said always ending up at the same place, which is tyranny, o matter which side wins. Yet the possibility of such needs to be on the minds of any government lest it become too oppressive. This is why I support the Second Amendment. At the same time I personally don’t see any use for such toys as are represented by heavy weaponry. That the examples people gave of private tank and jet fighter ownership do persuade me that the regulation of extreme weaponry is nearly impossible in a relatively free society.

I think of the Father whose eight year old son was killed firing an UZI at a Connecticut Gun Exposition practice range for children and I realize that peoples ability to act crazily is infinite, even for sane people. My sense is that even though regulation of advanced weapons is probably impossible perhaps it would be helpful to have some laws on the books against them to add some sobriety to people’s actions, even if their enforcement would be a joke. If I lived in a relatively rural area I too would be a gun owner of a variety of weaponry, simply because the actions of crazy people in such an environment would need to be protected against. Understanding that, it’s hard for me not to support gun ownership

It still mystifies me as to why someone would want to own such powerful weapons. The shooting I’ve done with both pistol and 22 caliber rifles at impromptu targets does give satisfaction, especially when I was young. I even have an aged cousin who recently started shooting at a target range, I can appreciate his interest in this diversion, while not wanting to add it to my mix of life’s amusements in my retirement.

well…. it just so happened that a man was carrying a gun that day….. here is his story…..

“I came out of that store, I clicked the safety off, and I was ready,” he explained on Fox and Friends. “I had my hand on my gun. I had it in my jacket pocket here. And I came around the corner like this.” Zamudio demonstrated how his shooting hand was wrapped around the weapon, poised to draw and fire. As he rounded the corner, he saw a man holding a gun. “And that’s who I at first thought was the shooter,” Zamudio recalled. “I told him to ‘Drop it, drop it!’ ”

But the man with the gun wasn’t the shooter. He had wrested the gun away from the shooter. “Had you shot that guy, it would have been a big, fat mess,” the interviewer pointed out.

The point is not that people should be prevented from owning guns. The point is that (a) assault weapons designed for the quick and efficient killing of a dozen people should only be issued to swat teams and each member of a swat team should be carefully vetted; (b) gun ownership should be regulated in a rational manner, not in a psycho-defensive-lunatic-fringe-I’ve-got-my-rights manner; and (c) ANY WRONGFUL BEHAVIOR with a gun should be dealt with effectively, meaning swiftly, officially, and with an ultimate view toward PUBLIC SAFETY and not emotional stroking of a paranoid, pugnacious, perverse lobby. :evil:

Mike,
Most people probably do not know it, but the USA owes a great debt of gratitude to Gen. Robert E. Lee. Some of his generals and commanders wanted to keep fighting a guerrilla war after the surrender at Appomattox. Lee, being the level head that he was, insisted they lay down their arms and accept the surrender. There were a few pockets of insurrection, but they were few in number and all were eventually either killed or arrested. Had Lee not been insistent there be no ongoing guerrilla war, who knows what this country would look like now. As it was, one small group of insurrectionist plotters managed to kill Lincoln.

You won. Never seen anyone demolish so many conventional arguments in so few seconds. ;-)

Just for clarification, my stating 30 rounds in less that one minute is a hypothetical. Hypothetical because I am not even interested in weapons compared to others here.
My figure was, I thought, illustrative of the guy in Arizona. Firing on a loose large group of people in an open ares would likely take around a minute to get off so many aimed shots. He had only to defend himself from unarmed people, so he had no pressure from that source.

He was disarmed when he had to change his first magazing according to newspaper reports.

In spite of the illustrious persons participating, I dialed out at the beginning as I felt it would not yield anything of real value as to solving the American firearms problem, but it did give some facts worth knowing. That’s why I read it afterwards.

It did also bring up an allied point by SwM: The dichotomy between the life on the land and the life in the city.

Malisha-
“The point is not that people should be prevented from owning guns. The point is that (a) assault weapons designed for the quick and efficient killing of a dozen people should only be issued to swat teams and each member of a swat team should be carefully vetted;”

Why not hunting rifles? They are far more powerful than an AK or AR-15. As has already been explained, “assault weapons” are just semi-automatic rifles that fire (in most cases) a medium power cartridge. They are rarely used in crime. Gun homicides committed with ALL long guns, that’s shotguns, hunting rifles, target rifles, and so called assault weapons comprise around 5% of all gun murders. If all of these murders went away, it would reduce the gun murder rate less than it has on its own in the last ten years or so.

Mike Spindell-
“It still mystifies me as to why someone would want to own such powerful weapons. The shooting I’ve done with both pistol and 22 caliber rifles at impromptu targets does give satisfaction, especially when I was young.”

.22s kill a lot of people.

Something else to consider is that the AR-15 platform is the biggest selling center-fire rifle in the country. Its virtues are many; it’s lightweight, has little recoil, is very accurate, and on and on. Damn near all of them kill nothing but paper targets. They aren’t a measurable problem.

It occurs to me there has been some discussion of large quantities of ammunition. Some posit that sales of large quantities of ammo be limited. My question is why? How many crimes does one ever hear of where the offender gets off more than just a few shots before either running away or being taken down?

I buy ammunition in boxes of 500. I prefer to do target practice with the .22, because it keeps the cost down. A box of 500 rounds of .22 ammunition can be had for the price of a steak dinner. Larger caliber rounds, either pistol or rifle can cost up to $2.50 every time you pull the trigger. My co-worker has a S&W 500, and each round costs him $2.50. Needless to say, he does not shoot it at the range much. It is easy to go through a box of 500 in one afternoon at the target range.

The real problem with all too many gun owners is they do not practice enough. If you own a firearm and think you might need to use it one day, then you should make regular trips to the range until you can operate it accurately and efficiently in the dark.

For the same reason that prohibition of drugs hasn’t worked in this country, neither will it work for banning or even limiting gun ownership. There are an estimated 270 million guns in the US, and a high demand for them. Prohibiting or limiting ownership would largely be futile, as most criminals admit that obtaining a weapon could be done relatively easily, and the cost of such prohibition would not be proportional to any impact it may have on crime.

Even the Brady Law, which required backround checks and a waiting period for handgun purchases, provided no significant differences in crime trends. Regulations on commercial gun sales can be easily evaded, and many criminals resort to illegitimate resources to obtain a gun anyway.

It is amazing to me that at this stage of our society, we seem to have given up on controlling the wrong guns in the wrong hands. Why would we or should we ever give up on controlling who gets lethal weapons? I am not advocating the rescinding of the Second Amendment, but reasonable restrictions are not only allowed, they are necessary to attempt to save some lives.

You can make the same argument with drugs. At this stage in society shouldn’t we be concerned with people taking substances which can ruin their lives or even kill them? Yes, but demand for drugs is so high that prohibition will simply not work, and has largely contributed to our rise in prison population. Im all for something that will actually work, but at this point the only statistics that I’ve seen seem to indicate that prohibition, or limitation, will not work. There are too many guns in America and by limiting who can own one only creates a black market, it does not save lives or lower crime rates.

Where I live Glock and AK-toting thugs are not likely to show up at the front gate. Not yet. A pickup truck filled with shotgun-wielding good-old-boys is more likely. Point is (without picking nits) that I am literally an army of one. The women folk here at the ranch don’t handle firearms well. Sorry gals, that’s my reality.

I don’t tote a carbine. That would be just silly. My concealed .45 handles life around town just fine. Oh, and my guns aren’t toys or phallic symbols. That would be my Cessna. ;-)

A year or so back I forgot my login password so I created a new account using my middle name (John). Now when I log in my first post is under my first name (Chris) and all subsequent posts are under my middle name. Can someone help me fix this?

You and your ilk have been floating this nonsense for a good solid twenty years now. That is to say the Standard Capacity magazine nonsense along with the Crazy Person Being Able To Buy A Gun tact. You’ve been reduced to this because your real goal, total prohibition, won’t fly.

We’ve had the “reasonable discussion”, the plea that all too often precedes an article such as this. Guess what? You lost.

At least one of you has a law degree. Reaquaint yourself with the term “third party indemnification”. In plain English, that means that if every other gun owner went out and shot somebody, and I didn’t, I’m not responsible for what they have done. To be even plainer, you can p!ss off if you think that you can hold me in any way accountable for the actions of others.

You want to reduce crime and shootings? I’m right there with you. Blaming an inanimate object is both silly and a waste of time. Put on your big boy pants and face the unpleasant reality that we (that’s all of us) need to address the people who shoot others, even if their skin contains more melanin than ours does. And that’s the real reason that cowards such as you two bleat about guns: you don’t have the stones to take on the vested interests in the minority communities. Dare I also mention that the overwhelming majority of the local governments whose benign neglect of the areas that most crime happens in are politically aligned with you?

People choose violent crime when there aren’t viable alternatives. That’s what we need to work on, not this silliness.

“Where I live Glock and AK-toting thugs are not likely to show up at the front gate. Not yet. A pickup truck filled with shotgun-wielding good-old-boys is more likely.”

Eddie,

Would those thugs who haven’t shown up yet have dark skin? It seems you differentiate between “White good-old-boys” and “Black thugs”. It seems to me a “thug is a thug” regardless of skin color, but then perhaps you have a preference there.

Rafflaw-
” I am not advocating the rescinding of the Second Amendment, but reasonable restrictions are not only allowed, they are necessary to attempt to save some lives.”

Again, the problem is that almost all of the “reasonable” restrictions proposed aren’t at all reasonable, whether because they are unworkable from a political or logistical standpoint, won’t actually do anything to reduce crime, etc.

Most gun control proposals are of the, “We have to do SOMETHING,” ilk. Which almost never results in good policy.

“Put on your big boy pants and face the unpleasant reality that we (that’s all of us) need to address the people who shoot others, even if their skin contains more melanin than ours does. And that’s the real reason that cowards such as you two bleat about guns: you don’t have the stones to take on the vested interests in the minority communities. Dare I also mention that the overwhelming majority of the local governments whose benign neglect of the areas that most crime happens in are politically aligned with you?”

Geeze Dweeze,

Up till now this has been a discussion about the pros and cons of gun prohibition, but suddenly you and Eddie make it about skin color. Why is that? I think it’s because you are an ass that hates Black people, or in other terms a bigot. I love people who call others cowards, when in reality they are so afraid of being attacked by Black people that they need to feel the have a larger penis by carrying a gun. Many people here are gun owners and users, other like myself support the Second Amendment’s current interpretation. you, however, are obviously in a different league: a gutless racist.

I can call you that because I spent 15 years working in NYC’s black communities, at all hours, alone without a gun. I worked in Ocean Hill, Brownsville, Bed Stuy, Harlem, Jamaica, Long Island City and the South Bronx. I worked the South Bronx when it was called “Fort Apache” and the word in the white community was that no policeman would patrol there unless with a partner. I walked through heroin shooting galleries and passed Black Panther Headquarters with a crowd hanging out in the streets and nobody ever attacked me. Usually, they’d say “good morning” or “good afternoon”, or “good evening”. Now this was at a time where there really was a high crime rate there and NYC had the highest murder rate in the country.
Why do you think I was able to do that. Perhaps it might occur to your bigoted brain that maybe the bad publicity about the “Big Bad Black Community” was tailored for scared racists like you, who wouldn’t have the guts to do what I did without a ton of weapons.

Today the crime rates all around the country reflect the fact that they have been dropping for years. But the media always like to play up to the fears of people like yourself, who are so afraid of their own shadow that they imagine they need guns for protection.

Yes many people here own guns and are gun enthusiasts. However, they are not racists like you and own their guns for good reasons, other than unreasoning fear.

Gene: Roger that! I figure it costs me about $500/hour to fly so infrequently. Sweet Jeebus! What a nasty habit.

Back OT, this drooling neantherthal — despite my camo-wearing neighbors — hunts not at all. So why on earth would I ever need a high-powered carbine and semi-automatic pistols with large capacity magazines? And please point out where in the Constitution hunting is even written? Discuss amongst yourselves.

“A well-organized network marketing team, being necessary to the achievement of The American Dream, the right of the people to keep and sell Amway products, shall not be infringed.” — George Jetson

“Racist! Who me? Why ol’ whitey been phucking me in the a55 for years, and I am still smiling. Seeeee!
Of course, I have shot a few, but that’s called justified homocide in my neighborhood. Where’s ma gun? You better disappear!”

“Racists, I don’t see no racists. I see stupids, but that is colorless they say, and I would be inclined to agree.”

“I also see those longing for the good ol’ days when you could shoot Injuns, rope cattle, rape the mares, and carry your .45 on your belt in town, and all knew you for a man. Those were good times.”

Fact is… the reason why we can NOT have a commonsense conversation about this subject is because we have a HUGE Pro Gun Lobby that has brain washed over have the citizens in the USA…..
These people spend MILLIONS upon MILLIONS so that the truth is buried in a sea of lies and disinformation….

Some of you have NO IDEA how fanatical you sound…

Now, many of you, accuse those of us that wish for commonsense Gun laws that we want to take away your guns…. or that it is ridiculous to blame an inanimate object for these deaths…. or you go on to tout the stats of swimming pool deaths… and auto accidents…..
Swimmingpools are not primarily made to kill those people who drown….
Automobiles are for getting from point A- to Point B….
GUNS…. are made for Killing and harming LIVING Beings… PERIOD!!!!
They are not made to cool you off in the summer time….
They are for the killing of an animal or human…..
Cars are made for transportation…. NOT for killing humans or animals….

One of you said that it is a small number of Children that die each year from accidental shootings…. Tell that to the 3,000 children that die each year from Gun related deaths….

One of you points out that I was wrong in mentioning that 11% of the adult Population is Psych Drugs…. you say that… Gun crime of all types, including murders, have plummeted over the last twenty years. Your premise is wrong….

Gun deaths may have also dropped due to MEDICAL Technology….

The last 3 MASS shootings were men that were mentally disturbed….

Shoot of Gabby Giffords… That boy was so OUT THERE…. Mentally incapacitated … NOT the LEGAL Term of Mentally Incapacitated…. as we know… that has been twisted into legal term so that FEWER people, even if they are mentally disturbed, will be unable to claim an Insanity Defense….
NOT because they were not clinically insane….

That guy that shot up the movie theater in Aurora… Mentally unstable….

The Virginia Tech Shooting…. the boy was mentally unstable….

So, to tell me that having these men go through a Mental evaluation every few years… that these men would not have been found BEFORE they destroyed the lives of 50 plus families….

These 3 shootings took the lives of 50 people…. and injured far more….

Had they been forced to have a mental clearance once a year or every 2 years to own a gun … these 3 Massacres could have been avoided….

I am NOT saying that they would have been avoided….
Just that they COULD have…..

Many here say that what we suggest is just not going to work…..

OK… then what Do you Pro Gun people think would be commonsense ideas to decrease the Gun Deaths in the USA????

———–

By the way…. it is not wise to assume that just because we want to find ways to fix this issue that we are anti gun…. I actually love shooting guns…. and have done so many time…
I just don’t have this idea that I will suddenly become the girl in Alias if I am attacked… MOST of the time when somebody is attacked.. they can NOT get to their gun… and if they do… they freeze and it is taken away from them….
I think it is a false sense of security…

Lastly… I am from the USA… so I am very used to guns….

HOWEVER….. I feel far safer in Sweden, than I do the USA…
I was in Kingman Arizona over the summer….
I saw the kind of people that carried their guns everywhere…
NO.. I did not feel safer seeing those people carrying guns…

raff,
As I mentioned before, how are you defining “mental illness?” Where is the line drawn? As I said, schizophrenics have a lower incidence of being the perpetrators of gun violence than the general population.

Technically, a personality disorder is not a DSM-IV Axis I clinical diagnosis. Personality disorders are on Axis II where learning disabilities are also classified. It has been my experience that some of the most potentially dangerous people have Axis II personality disorders, not Axis I diagnoses.

Axis III is for physical limitations that impair ordinary daily living, such as blindness or being confined to a wheelchair. I am not in favor of the blind having firearms, but how about the deaf, paraplegic or obese? You will find those diagnoses on Axis III.

If a person is prescribed antidepressants for depression by their family doctor, what about those people? Depression is easily diagnosed and treated, but untreated depression can lead to suicidal ideation.

Then there is the issue of confidentiality. That is not going to go away.

I see no way around, over, or under the problem to get you to where you want to go.

As I mentioned before, how are you defining “mental illness?” Where is the line drawn? As I said, schizophrenics have a lower incidence of being the perpetrators of gun violence than the general population.

SSRI (Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors)antidepressants sold as Paxil and Prozac, among others, are used by millions of adults and children for depression. But are the antidepressants doing what they are supposed to? After reviewing two dozen clinical studies, the FDA Advisory Panel now says these drugs [antidepressants] cause a small, but increased risk of suicidal thinking and behavior. Symptoms include: suicidal thoughts, suicide and withdrawal symptoms.

Investigating the link between antidepressants and violence: Tragedies like this one in Pennsylvania and the one in Colorado last week seem to be inexplicable. But listen to this: More often than not, antidepressants are involved. In Colorado, for instance, Police found antidepressant in Duane Morrison’s Jeep.

Symptoms that antidepressants are supposed to be treating, actually make
them worse…

I will repeat this little excerpt…..

“More often than not, antidepressants are involved. In Colorado, for instance, Police found antidepressant in Duane Morrison’s Jeep.”

“It is well documented that psychiatric drugs, particularly antidepressants, can cause a host of violent side effects including mania, psychosis, aggression, violence, and in the case of the antidepressant Effexor, homicidal ideation …

[P]eople with no prior history of violence (or suicide) became homicidal and suicidal under the influence of antidepressants. … However, despite all the documented violence-inducing side effects of these drugs, the FDA has never issued black box warnings on antidepressants causing violence or homicide despite the fact that at least 11 recent school shootings were committed by kids documented to be on or in withdrawal from psychiatric drugs.”

The expert testimony in this case was supplied by Dr. Peter Breggin, an outspoken critic of psychiatric drugs. The featured article quotes him as saying:

“These drugs produce a stimulant or activation continuum… That continuum includes aggression, hostility, loss of impulse control … all of which are a prescription for violence.”

justagurl,
You are absolutely wrong about that. Antidepressants work well for about 85% of depressed persons. There is about 15% of the population for whom they do not work well. Most suicides take place when the depression is either improving or the patient is becoming depressed. Also, there are different types of depression with different etiologies. Antidepressants have been around for almost a half century, but the discovery of serotonin selective reuptake inhibitors changed the treatment landscape dramatically.

There are now treatments for atypical depression that are filling that 15% gap. To recommend a person go through life in the blackest of psychological holes and not get treatment is unconscionable.

Quoting mother in film I posted above: “How can a 14 year old get a automatic weapon to kill my son with when he cant even get a fresh tomato in this neighborhood?”

The community college Jared Loughner attended before the shooting demanded a psychological review before allowing him back in class. While he may have had his gun before this happened, maybe this should have triggered a gun check, a talk with him and the parents about his legally purchased Glock, etc.

OT, here is a fun film of Sotomayor, imagine Thomas trying to do something like this:

Don’t like your words read back to you and interpreted for what they imply?
It’s your words. As for me being a race-baiter, that is these days the imprecation used by racists against those that call them on their bigotry. Why ot tell me how what your words didn’t mean what I interpreted them to mean. Were you being ironic? Improbable.

I am not brainwashed by the NRA, and it is a bit offensive to assume that anybody who does not hold the same opinion as yourself is brainwashed. I don’t think prohibition works, not for drugs, and not for guns (given our history and the total number of guns we have in the US). If you can point me to some statistics that show “this law” reduced crime by “this much” then I would be willing to re examine my position. The idea that we should just “do something” sounds exactly like the stance people take who believe drugs should be outlawed.

so, let me get this strait… you are a quick gun loading psychiatrist???

are you an expert in Psychiatry????

You think it is safe to hand guns to people who’s brain chemistry is being manipulated????

You know that NOT all people that have been remanded to a psych ward are crazy or mentally unstable….
YET, they are not supposed to be allowed to own firearms?????

OK…..

do know that most of the mass shootings have involved people that were on these drugs????

See, all I see you doing, is condemning any commonsense actions or suggestions what so ever… even if they are PERFECTLY legitimate for gun control to avoid putting guns in the wrong hands…..

what I have YET to see, is you suggesting anything at all that would help this problem…..

arming EVERYBODY is not the solution….

I guess that YOUR Freedom is OK as long as it is NOT your child who gets shot in the head……

3,000 children die EVERY year for your freedom….. as long as that is an OK consequence with you Pro Gun types….

when I see you people trying to find solutions to this CONSEQUENCE then I MIGHT start buying it that YOU care about other people, than yourselves…..
YET, I have NEVER SEEN or HEARD ONE Pro Gun person try to suggest any solutions to try to decrease the deaths of these children…. NOPE… not once…..

Can’t even get behind perhaps people being mandated to take Firearms safety classes….

oh well…. as one of you put it… it is a small percentage of children who die of these gun deaths….

cuz yeah…. 3,000 Children dying EVERY YEAR is a small amount…. (sarcasm)

No, this wasn’t a discussion of gun prohibition. That conversation ended with the publication of the Heller decision. Let me remind you of the outcome: your side lost.

The conversation now is how to best stop people from killing one another. Focusing on the object is silly: not a single one of my firearms has ever gone and shot anyone on its’ own. Not a single one of my firearms has been used to shoot anyone during the entire time I’ve owned them. I submit to you that the reason for that has nothing to do with my guns and everything to do with the person that owns them.

Oh, you worked in Black areas for 15 years? How special. I was born in the Bronx and lived there, full-time. I didn’t get to the end of my day and then hop on the train to go home in a nicer neighborhood. And my time also corresponds to the Fort Apache era, and walking through Mott-Haven by daylight and doing so at night were two entirely different experiences.

And for the record, you can call me a “racist” because you haven’t anything intelligent to say. It’s what your kind does when confronted with an unpleasant truth.

Despite falling crime rates (assuming one can trust the numbers published. There’s more than a little evidence that the NYPD has been cooking the figures for years now.), Black people killing other Black people is a major problem, along with the same in Hispanic neighborhoods. Don’t give me any of your crap about this. I was there, I lived through it, including dodging bullets on more than one occasion. If you’re ready for the effort, the work is there to be done. If you think that you can reduce that death rate without saying some hard things to people that don’t want to hear it, you’re wasting your time, much as you’ve managed to waste mine today.

NOW… all they are is a Pro Gun lobby being paid a LOT of money by the Gun industry, so that MORE and MORE guns will be sold, and the Firearms industry can make more money…. in turn, the NRA makes more money….

It is a CORRUPT Lobbying force that cares NOTHING about the death and destruction that it is causing….. You people just don’t see it…. they keep YOU paranoid, so that they can sell more guns…. NRA makes more money…. the Gun industry makes more money….
EVERYBODY around the NRA wins….
EXCEPT the nation that it is destroying…..

and if it is true that you want to reduce deaths….
then WHY is it that you people always block any ideas on this???
why do you NEVER suggest any ideas to help in this????

Cuz ALL I have seen here, is Pro Gun people saying that NOTHING will work…

Do you have any suggestions that might help towards decreasing the accidental deaths of Children?????

Dredd…
He is NEVER getting out…..
there is a special provision for people they deem too dangerous to
release from jail…. So, they can keep him as long as they want and feel that he is a danger…. and being that he is not crazy… and that he is just a whinny racist POS…. he will be there for life, I am sure…

You may think that 23 years is too light a sentence…. and I would most likely agree….

HOWEVER… Norway, has the lowest recidivism rates in the world…. MUCH lower than the USA….

The USA has a difficult time distinguishing between JUSTICE and REVENGE……
——————————————–

idealist707 1, November 11, 2012 at 4:19 pm

Dredd,

The guy in Norway won’t get out. He will come up for review and will be denied, however many times until he dies. AZ guy got 17 lifetimes. How do you get that out of him.
========================================
Ok, numbers game = life in jail for both of them.

I am not saying that nothing will work. I think there is evidence that some specific problem oriented approaches to reducing gun violence can work, such as Project Safe Neighborhoods (although its sustainability is questionable). The fact that there are 270 million guns in the US makes prohibition impossible and I have seen no statistics that support laws like Brady Law having any significant impact on crime rates.

rafflaw-
“Jason,
Are you suggesting that somehow restricting persons who have been declared mentally ill or diagnosed as such should not be prevented from owning weapons? Isn’t that a reasonable request?”

People who have been involuntarily committed or legally adjudicated are already barred from firearm ownership. What do you suggest we do in addition to that that will not cause a chilling effect on those seeking treatment, violate client/doctor privilege, etc.? Who dictates what mental illnesses get you blacklisted? I keep asking the same questions and no one will answer.

justagurlinseattle-
“Fact is… the reason why we can NOT have a commonsense conversation about this subject is because we have a HUGE Pro Gun Lobby that has brain washed over have the citizens in the USA…..These people spend MILLIONS upon MILLIONS so that the truth is buried in a sea of lies and disinformation….”

And we also have an anti-gun side that uses emotional appeals, bizarre logic, and openly admits that it benefits from the general public being ignorant about firearms. Their arguments have collapsed over the last twenty years as crime has plummeted.

“or you go on to tout the stats of swimming pool deaths… and auto accidents…..Swimmingpools are not primarily made to kill those people who drown….”

So what? You are the one that brought up gun accidents killing children. Obviously their intended function is irrelevant when it pertains to accidents. The point is, it’s not difficult to safely own firearms and citing accidents (and throwing in the emotional appeal of saving the CHILDREN) is a poor rationale.

“Automobiles are for getting from point A- to Point B….
GUNS…. are made for Killing and harming LIVING Beings… PERIOD!!!!”

Some are. Many guns are designed for game or target shooting. As for the rest, 99.999% of them will never be used to harm a person. But granting that they are, yeah, I want my gun to be well-designed to harm people because any people I would harm I would do so only because they were a threat to my or my family’s lives. If you can come up with a Star Trek phaser with a reliable stun setting, I’ll switch. Until then, a gun is the best tool for the job.

“One of you said that it is a small number of Children that die each year from accidental shootings…. Tell that to the 3,000 children that die each year from Gun related deaths….”

This is the sort of thing I’m talking about. You mentioned accidental deaths, I pointed out that the accidental gun death rate for children is low and going down. You reply with a number counting all gun deaths among children, which wasn’t the argument. But let’s look at some real numbers. You’ve now jumped to 3000 deaths. The number of accidental firearm deaths for people ages 0-17 in 2010? 98. Homicide by gun for the same age group? 835. Suicides? 375. That’s well under half the number you are citing, less than a third if you don’t count suicides. I’m citing the Centers for Disease Control. Where in the world did you get 3000?

“The last 3 MASS shootings were men that were mentally disturbed….

Shoot of Gabby Giffords… That boy was so OUT THERE…. Mentally incapacitated … NOT the LEGAL Term of Mentally Incapacitated…. as we know… that has been twisted into legal term so that FEWER people, even if they are mentally disturbed, will be unable to claim an Insanity Defense….
NOT because they were not clinically insane….

That guy that shot up the movie theater in Aurora… Mentally unstable….

The Virginia Tech Shooting…. the boy was mentally unstable….

So, to tell me that having these men go through a Mental evaluation every few years… that these men would not have been found BEFORE they destroyed the lives of 50 plus families….”

Do you have any idea what sort of logistical issue it is to have every gun owner get a meaningful evaluation that often? Do you not realize how few gun homicides are of this type? The possible chilling effect on those seeking care? And all of that is irrelevant because it’s a political non-starter.

“OK… then what Do you Pro Gun people think would be commonsense ideas to decrease the Gun Deaths in the USA????”

There is no single button to push to solve the problem. It’s incredibly complex. Economic and educational inequality, a lousy criminal justice system, failing public schools, the drug war, a lousy mental health care system….

But that’s messy. That’s inconvenient for those who want magic wand solutions to real problems.

But if you force me to come up with gun-specific reforms, I’ll give it a try:

*Crack down hard on straw-purchasers.
*Increase penalties for using guns during crimes.
*Make the illegal sale of guns too risky to be worth the profit.

“MOST of the time when somebody is attacked.. they can NOT get to their gun… and if they do… they freeze and it is taken away from them….”

Where are you coming up with this stuff? I can give you a massive list of news stories where normal people successfully used guns to defend themselves.

justagurlinseattle-
“As I mentioned before, how are you defining “mental illness?” Where is the line drawn? As I said, schizophrenics have a lower incidence of being the perpetrators of gun violence than the general population.

and here you laughed my theory out of the water and dismissed it as being uninformed….

well…. Read this……”

I read it and it doesn’t come close to answering any of our criticisms. SSRI use has skyrocketed over the last 20 years. And crime has plummeted. If my standards were as loose as yours, I’d point to that correlation and say that SSRIs reduce violence. But I know better.

“More often than not, antidepressants are involved. In Colorado, for instance, Police found antidepressant in Duane Morrison’s Jeep.”

As a user of this class of anti-depressants I am one of the fortunate 85 percent that OS mentioned.
And it turned me from a pessmist to an optimist, putting it briefly.

What more it accomplished is difficult to say as I also go to a psychologist of the gestalt type, but where dogma never seem to show its face.

Advice: If you feel the need try, do get in touch with a qualified psychiatrist whom you trust. Getting on SSRI’s requires initially support medication to ease the anxiety associated with the first weeks after commencing use. This is a common side effect for some during the initial phase. You may need other qualified help: psychologist, curator, or whatever is suggested.

I got my first try years ago prescribed at my request by a heart doctor. This wsa due to my concern that depression had been shown to have a negative effect on the development of arterioschlerosis.***

We both made a mistake. Had to stop as the anxiety became worse. So get the support that you need.

They are not happy pills, they just help you to see life with new eyes. And that is just one patients view. Not a study.

The sheriff knew about Laughner and because the Laughner family were political contributors, he kept it hushed up.. If they had followed through, Laughner would have been in the NICS system and wouldn’t have been allowed to own a gun.

As long as the American society is as it is, then any efforts in terms of gun control will be useless and likely even counter-productive.

Guns as way of solving conflicts, as a necessity for self-protection, and something we see constantly used in so many TV programs, games, etc. that moving it out of our psyche is impossible. And they are making billions on the
films, TV, clothes, etc. etc. So stop, are you mad they say. It is what keeps us on edge (one of many factors for that purpose) and ready to say yes, protect me wiht the war, etc. Pay for our defense but not a nickel to health.

robertgunshop, yea, that is because the ‘good old boy’ system is how they do every single thing in Az. Not a part of it? Too bad for you, the hammer of the law comes crashing down. Here it backfired in their faces big-time. What a shame. You have to feel for that sheriff and the parents, who did not confiscate his weapon…..did they even try at any point before the shooting? Or did the gun cult training overcome common sense?
Lifelong regrets and pain.

I was once put on Effexor for Depression and it made it WORSE…..
Not a LITTLE worse…. a LOT worse…

so, I had to gently decrease my dose and took about 6 months before I felt NORMAL again….
This is when I started reading about these medications….
when I asked my psychiatrist if these meds can make depression worse…
the answer was YES….
when I asked a few pharmacists if these meds could make depression worse…. the answer was YES…..

So, I am talking talking blindly about something that I have not been on… or looked into….

and the fact is…. these meds even though they can do some good….
they are massing with a persons brain chemistry….
and we have Doctors in the USA that are NOT TRAINED in diagnosing or treating depression…. however, they are allowed to prescribe these pills at will……

People may say that because there are so many guns, that NOTHING can be done…
I think that is pessimistic to think along those lines….

“I didn’t get to the end of my day and then hop on the train to go home in a nicer neighborhood. And my time also corresponds to the Fort Apache era, and walking through Mott-Haven by daylight and doing so at night were two entirely different experiences.And for the record, you can call me a “racist” because you haven’t anything intelligent to say. It’s what your kind does when confronted with an unpleasant truth.”

Dweeze,

Once again your own words which introduced the topic of skin color into the discussion:

“Put on your big boy pants and face the unpleasant reality that we (that’s all of us) need to address the people who shoot others, even if their skin contains more melanin than ours does. And that’s the real reason that cowards such as you two bleat about guns: you don’t have the stones to take on the vested interests in the minority communities.”

Are you worried that those big, bad black people are going to attack you so you add that to the discussion of whether or not to regulate weaponry? It seems to me that those are your words. Now as far as cowardice though why are you afraid to admit that you fear Black people killing you? That is the meaning of your own words. Do you perhaps have a different interpretation of what you meant, I would be glad to hear it. As for the implication that I lived in a different neighborhood, you’re right, mine was a lower middle-class neighborhood that was about fifty percent Black, it was called LeFrak City, perhaps you heard of it. Nobody ever attacked me there either but many White people in New York, probably like yourself, thought it strange I lived there. As far as what you went through in Mott-Haven at night, I was there at night too. How come I didn’t get into trouble or fights?
Maybe it was because I didn’t have the kind of stupidly, macho attitude that calls people you don’t know cowards.

Now of course when you utter words like the vested interests of the minority communities that is also racist, since we all know how well Black people are doing in this country. If you had the guts you pretend to have you could at least admit you don’t like people with too much melanin and believe them to be a threat to you. Used to be years ago that racists like you had the courage of their convictions and would openly admit their racism and bigotry. They would be proud of it in fact. Guess you lack the “stones” to admit who you are.

“Put on your big boy pants and face the unpleasant reality that we (that’s all of us) need to address the people who shoot others, even if their skin contains more melanin than ours does. And that’s the real reason that cowards such as you two bleat about guns: you don’t have the stones to take on the vested interests in the minority communities.”

Excerpt:
The mass murder motive on the other hand is very different. While they have their own perceived reasons for killing these rarely make logical sense. As for demographics, the mass murderer is typically a white male, a loner, has a college degree or some college, from a relatively stable background and from an upper-middle to middle class family. They often aspire to more than they can handle, then form a hatred and blame others if they fail. Also, they are much more likely to suffer from a mental illness, specifically some type of psychosis.

“I was once hospitalized for a brown recluse bite, and I still do not fear spiders. Weird!”

I’m going to say while I agree on what you said about racists and homophobes, I had a totally different experience with my brown recluse bite. I got bitten by one in my sleep while I was in college. I used to capture spiders and turn them loose out back. Now? A spider in the house is just a dead freakin’ spider. But I’m pretty sure it’s a disjunct analogy anyway. :mrgreen:

The inherent problem in what you say is rooted in history and the nature of technology. The history of this country is such that the 2nd Amendment was inevitable. A cursory read of the Declaration of Independence will yield why: we were founded in a populist uprising against a tyrannical government. Rebellion and the possibility of rebellion are in our political DNA – “When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.” And the nature of technology figures in with the “genie/bottle” phenomenon. Once a technology is introduced into the wild so to speak it is practically impossible to put back in the bottle. You see this with nuclear weapons. With such inherently dangerous technologies the ability to “unmake” them is a nullity absent some global version of the dark ages were knowledge is lost and humanity experiences retrograde technological progress as a whole. If you outlawed guns, as OS said, they are not that hard to make from scratch.

We are a people born in armed insurrection against tyranny. If you try to take the guns out of the equation, you’ll create an even more dangerous situation with black markets and encourage the very kind of insurrection most would rather avoid if possible.

Sensible regulation is the only answer and even that will not cure the crazy problem. All things being equal? Guns are something like atomic weapons – it would probably be better for all societies if we could “un-invent” them. That’s simply not going to happen though. That’s not pessimistic. That’s realistic.

I find it rather ironic that It has been the Pro Gun people here who have brought up PROHIBITION…..

The Gun control group has NOT ONCE suggested Prohibiting Firearms….
we have only suggested common sense ideas that might help decrease this national embarrassment…..
and face it…. it is an embarrassment…

secondly….

While gun deaths may be down, as some of you have suggested…. that does not mean that gun violence has dropped…. it just means that people are living through the gunshot wounds more now days, due to medical advancements…

What I find so troubling is that the Pro Gun people REFUSE to even entertain the idea that commonsense regulation would help….

They just want to think that if EVERYBODY is armed and anybody should be able to walk in the store and buy a gun and that it will make the country better… that it will be a safer nation…. and that could not be further from the truth….

Using recent data from the World Health Organization (WHO), this paper provides striking evidence on the size of the U.S. problems of gun homicide, overall homicide, gun suicide, and unintentional gun death compared to other advanced countries—for both genders and every age group.

This article summarizes the scientific literature on the health risks and benefits of having a gun in the home for the gun owner and his/her family and concludes that for most contemporary Americans, the health risk of a gun in the home is greater than the benefit

Hemenway, David. Risks and benefits of a gun in the home. American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine 2011; 5:502-511.

Harvard Injury Control Research Center
Gun Threats and Self-Defense Gun Use

1-3 Guns are not used millions of times each year in self-defense

We use epidemiological theory to explain why the “false positive” problem for rare events can lead to large overestimates of the incidence of rare diseases or rare phenomena such as self-defense gun use. We then try to validate the claims of many millions of annual self-defense uses against available evidence. We find that the claim of many millions of annual self-defense gun uses by American citizens is invalid.

Hemenway, David. Survey research and self-defense gun use: An explanation of extreme overestimates. Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology. 1997; 87:1430-1445.

4. Most purported self-defense gun uses are gun uses in escalating arguments and are both socially undesirable and illegal

We analyzed data from two national random-digit-dial surveys conducted under the auspices of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center. Criminal court judges who read the self-reported accounts of the purported self-defense gun use rated a majority as being illegal, even assuming that the respondent had a permit to own and to carry a gun, and that the respondent had described the event honestly from his own perspective.

Hemenway, David; Miller, Matthew; Azrael, Deborah. Gun use in the United States: Results from two national surveys. Injury Prevention. 2000; 6:263-267.

5. Firearms are used far more often to intimidate than in self-defense.

Using data from a national random-digit-dial telephone survey conducted under the direction of the Harvard Injury Control Center, we examined the extent and nature of offensive gun use. We found that firearms are used far more often to frighten and intimidate than they are used in self-defense. All reported cases of criminal gun use, as well as many of the so-called self-defense gun uses, appear to be socially undesirable.

Hemenway, David; Azrael, Deborah. The relative frequency of offensive and defensive gun use: Results of a national survey. Violence and Victims. 2000; 15:257-272.

6. Guns in the home are used more often to intimidate intimates than to thwart crime.

Using data from a national random-digit-dial telephone survey conducted under the direction of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center, we investigated how and when guns are used in the home. We found that guns in the home are used more often to frighten intimates than to thwart crime; other weapons are far more commonly used against intruders than are guns.

Publication: Azrael, Deborah R; Hemenway, David. In the safety of your own home: Results from a national survey of gun use at home. Social Science and Medicine. 2000; 50:285-91.

If the people really want to do something about firearm deaths and accidents in this country, the answer is not going to be found in prohibition. The NRA is a lot of things I do not approve of, but one thing they do well is their training seminars. Seems that whenever anyone posts anything about the Second Amendment on a progressive or liberal blog, people seem to come out of the woodwork wanting to ban guns, and proudly pronounce that they have never even seen a real gun up close or held one.

I think firearms training ought to be more widely available. When my daughter was in high school, archery was part of her physical education curriculum. She liked it so much she wanted her own compound bow. I see no reason why responsible firearms training should not also be taught. After all, to use the argument of some folks upthread, bows and arrows were invented for one purpose: to kill things. How come archery is acceptable when firearms training is not?

Education solves a lot of problems, and is a whole lot cheaper than some of the alternatives borne out of ignorance.

Appearing before Congress, Karl Frederick, the NRA’s president, was asked whether the Second Amendment imposed any limits on gun control. Remarkably, he answered that he had “not given it any study from that point of view.” Indeed, the NRA at that time supported restrictive gun control laws, even drafting and promoting in state after state laws curtailing the concealed carry of firearms.

Today’s NRA files lawsuits and pushes legislatures to overturn these very same laws.

Mike,
“It seems you differentiate between ‘White good-old-boys’ and ‘Black thugs’. It seems to me a ‘thug is a thug’ regardless of skin color, but then perhaps you have a preference there.”

Wow! that’s some Prime USDA bovine excrement there, Mikey. Your hypocrisy and poor propaganda efforts are showing. What’s with the quotes around “white” and “black”? I never wrote that. You’re projecting something that didn’t start with me. That’s disgusting and dishonest. A quote is what someone actually WROTE, for fracks sake! It’s a lie. Are you a liar, Mike? Fair play, dude. You’re calling me a racist.

Like I wrote earlier, my daughter would call you an asshat.

A good-old-boy around here is a local. We have Natives, Hispanics, African-Americans (yes, we really do!), and Whites. Lots of whom are country music listening, pickup driving, Bud Light drinking, bible thumping, gun-toting, and generally of limited education. If they get all liquored up and pile into a pickup truck with the intention of stealing from me or hurting me . . . I’d call them thugs, too. Who cares? I’m just not going to play your race-baiting game. It’s just a propaganda technique that, like the boy (sorry, I should say . . . juvenile male) who cried “wolf” too often, becomes worthless currency.

Elaine, it happens once in a while, but not often. Point is, they are deadly weapons and anyone who might use one should not pick a bow up off the shelf and start shooting without training. An arrow can kill a deer, bear or a human just as dead as a bullet. I am a fierce advocate of safety and proper use training with anything that is potentially dangerous.

A crossbow bolt (that is what crossbow arrows are called) can shoot through many types of body armor at close range.

Gene,
One of our local TV weathermen was shot in the chest by a spurned lover who used a crossbow. Crossbow bolt hit him in the middle of his chest and by some miracle, missed both his heart and his spine.

That’s it, take something out of context and make an issue of it. When confronted, double down.

Your personality (as shown here) is one of the reasons I left social work nearly 30 years ago: too much education backed up by far too little brain. I chose my words deliberately to provoke a reaction, knowing that some over-educated dunderhead would bite. Congratulations, Sparky.

Go back and reread what I wrote, not what you thought I wrote. Until you can tell the difference, discussions such as this will never be more than a source of amusement for me. You are a profoundly unserious person trying futilely to have a serious conversation.

Go right ahead and holler about guns along with your oh-so-enlightened views on race. Nothing you do will have any impact until you take yourself (along with your nonexistent spine) into the areas where the people who use guns live. And then you’re going to need a plan to convince them to put them down. Hint: it has something to do with jobs that pay decently. Hint the Second: a sense of human dignity and self-worth would also be helpful. People who see the value in themselves tend to assume that value in others. Makes it harder to blow someone away. Which is what we’re all after, in the end.

One study published in 2011 confirms this finding. The study, published in the Journal of Trauma — Injury Infection & Critical Care, found that firearm homicide rates were 19.5 times higher in the U.S. than in 23 other “high income” countries studied, using 2003 data. Rates for other types of gun deaths were also higher in the U.S., but by somewhat smaller margins: 5.8 times higher for firearm suicides (even though overall suicide rates were 30 percent lower in the U.S.) and 5.2 times higher for unintentional firearm deaths.

justagurlinseattle-
“What I find so troubling is that the Pro Gun people REFUSE to even entertain the idea that commonsense regulation would help….”

And you refuse to propose anything that is common sense. We have repeatedly explained why most of the ideas here either won’t work or are philosophically objectionable and we keep hearing nothing in return.

“They just want to think that if EVERYBODY is armed and anybody should be able to walk in the store and buy a gun and that it will make the country better… that it will be a safer nation…. and that could not be further from the truth….”

NO ONE wants everyone carrying or owning guns. This is just an outright lie.

Also, you cited numerous works with David Hemenway’s name attached. Understand that he is not the only or final word on the issue. There are researchers that have made findings different from him.

You also claimed that no one here has suggested banning guns. Go back and read all of the responses. You will see repeated calls to ban so called “assault weapons”.

“What I find so troubling is that the Pro Gun people REFUSE to even entertain the idea that commonsense regulation would help….”

Generalize much? I’m “pro-gun”. Whatever that label is supposed to imply. I don’t even belong to the NRA and, after what I saw during my concealed carry class, I was convinced beyond any doubt that some people do not deserve to carry a pocketknife — let alone a firearm.

It should be definitely be harder to carry concealed. Gun at home for personal protection? No problema.

The Aurora Shooter used an AR-15…. Isn’t that considered an assault weapon???

Since 1982, there have been at least 61 mass murders* carried out with firearms across the country, with the killings unfolding in 30 states from Massachusetts to Hawaii.

—–
Weapons: Of the 139 guns possessed by the killers, more than three quarters were obtained legally.

The arsenal included dozens of assault weapons and semiautomatic handguns. (See charts below.) Just as Jeffrey Weise used a .40-caliber Glock to massacre students in Red Lake, Minnesota, in 2005, so too did James Holmes (along with an AR-15 assault rifle) when blasting away at his victims in a darkened movie theater.

“The ONLY way to change this PRO GUN culture that resides in the USA, is to fight the BLATANT disinformation that the gun lobby and the NRA are putting out there…..

EDUCATION is EVERYTHING…..”

That’s a false dichotomy and violates the excluded middle. There is no single solution to the pro gun culture and labelling it as such misses the point. The problem is less the pro-gun culture than it is the pro-violence culture created by our entertainment and sports industries. Violence can be inherently entertaining – from humor to drama it is a part of what constitutes entertainment from antiquity. But it’s lost all context in the modern world in much the same way it lost all context in the Roman world. There’s a big difference between say black comedy, old school Warner Bros. cartoons, and Shakespeare where death is played for laughs and to create dramatic tension and stuff like video games (which as immersive interactive entertainment pose special risks) and “movies” like those torture porn Hostel and Saw garbage. Violence as entertainment can be all well and good as long as there is context and it is required for moving the story along in some way. Another issue is the ever increasingly shallow grip a lot of people have on reality in general. Many people have a problem separating fiction from reality. Education about guns is a good thing. So is an education about what is real and what isn’t. When you see a guy shot in a Western, they always leave the part out about corpses losing control of their bowels and bladder. Do you know why most people with a good martial arts background don’t talk cavalierly about kicking someone’s ass or physically threaten other people? It’s because of their training they know exactly what the very real costs of violence can be.

Violence as entertainment is one thing. If you can discern entertainment from reality.

Violence as a problem solving methodology in reality is usually the wrong methodology.

Some times it can’t be avoided though and that is the hard reality of human nature, but it should be reserved as the very last option. That is why most martial arts training teaches controlling and killing techniques and that when to use them are distinctly different situations.

That’s why I always get a kick out the feebs on the Web who think telling me directly or making veiled references to how they could kick my ass is a reasonable response.

But you won’t make headway until you address the problem for what it is: a tendency to use violence as a problems solving tool instead of other forms of dispute resolution. Guns aren’t intrinsically the problem.

People are.

Guns make killing easy. They are a tool. People make the decision though. Not the tool.

How many times do we have to keep going down this path. I am beginning to feel like a hamster on a treadmill. Assault rifles are not what those guys used. They are nothing more than semi-automatic rifles with a medium velocity center fire cartridge. The average deer rifle is more powerful than an AK-47. An assault rifle has a “select fire” switch which can make the rifle fully automatic that will shoot as long as the trigger is held down. What the uninformed call “an assault rifle” in common parlance is an ordinary rifle that has been made to look like a military rifle. Ugly on a gun is not illegal.

So now we have justagurlinseattle saying that banning a gun is not banning a gun. And she’s obviously ignored the repeated explanations that so called assault weapons aren’t particularly deadly or powerful and are used in only a tiny fraction of all gun murders.

That site I just posted has a lot of statistics on the issue, but it’s probably grouped into the “other weapons” data and not broken out. My point was that it’s not as rare as you might think. It’s a marginal percentage comparatively to be sure, but it does happen. Just looking at Google showed me it happens a lot more than I would have thought.

Well… we have the NRA falsely claiming that MILLIONS of guns a year are used to deter crime….
That is NOT the case….

We have the NRA falsely claiming that it is our RIGHT to own any gun….

We have the NRA falsely claiming a lot of things…. and a LOT of misinformation out there….

We now have politicians that want guns more widely available because they say that more guns means less crime.. That is also just not fact…..

The Problem is that the NRA and other Pro Gun lobbying groups push out propaganda at an alarming rate…. They have ONE agenda… sell more guns… sell more memberships….
this is NOT to make the country better or safer…. it is just for more money…..

You can try to blame it on sports and entertainment…. HOWEVER…..
some of the most violent sports is seen at European sporting events… Riots after Footboll games… these people get SERIOUS…

The Irish and English have a massive history of violence…. yet, they have FAR LESS gun violence than the USA….

You can try to blame movies… and yes, I do think that violence is a bit more glorified than I would like…..
BUT, the French are masters at violent movies… even more so than the USA…. same with UK… their crime dramas show far MORE violence and torture than the US movies and TV shows…

Look at Japan… they are also masters at horror and violent movies….
their crime rates are lower then the USA…..

The USA is NOT evolving with the rest of the western world….

You can say that… Oh… it is OK… that is just our culture…. BUT, we are just making excuses….

One can do a hell of a lot of damage with a measly .22LR round. That’s the same caliber John Hinckley used to go after Reagan and wound a few others. And using a crappy, short-barreled revolver, no less.

A .22LR is an efficient round for killing people (especially defenseless ones). It’s cheap as dirt, makes a tiny hole in the body, tends to bounce around inside the body doing further damage, is hard to verify ballistically, and it’s pretty quiet compared to hunting/military rounds. A killer could carry pocketfulls of even the standard 10-round magazines for either a pistol or rifle and have a party. It’s been a favorite of mob hit men.

So where does it end? How far does the camel enter the tent? Are you gonna ban even .22LR rifles that most young kids use as their starter rifle?

Banning the high-profile, military-style weapons solves nothing other than to make the hoplophobes feel good. And, as we all know, it’s so much better to feel good than to DO good, right?

JAG-
I carry no water for the NRA. I can’t stand them. As for defensive uses, even the most anti-gun researchers put the number at around 100,000 per year (compared to around 15,000 total deaths and around 100,000 total deaths and injuries. The vast majority of research puts it over one million. Either way, it is absurd to not consider the positives of gun ownership.

Your notion that banning “a” gun isn’t banning all guns, well sure, that’s correct. However, “the” gun you want to buy is the most popular center fire rifle in the country. And there are numerous other weapons that would qualify under the nebulous title “assault weapon”. You would be banning a massively popular category of guns in the hope that you would prevent a small fraction of gun homicides.

So thedweeze you came here for a reaction. Perhaps just another embittered election loser who stupidly thought he was going to have fun provoking “da Libruls”, that of course being synonymous with too much education. Your chosen means to provoke that reaction was blatant racism. You also threw in cowardice to further provoke.

Your gutlessness when called on it was to accuse me of in effect playing the race card. I bet when you’re hanging out with the guys they think you are quite a wit. You are funny dweeze in the sense that you’re someone to laugh at because all you’ have admitted to was being ignorant. In my opinion ignorance is far worse than stupidity. :)

Wrong yet again, Mr. Spindell. You know, your ability to tenaciously cling to the wrong side of an argument is kind of admirable. But only kind of.

This has nothing about the election, although that was a nice bit of projection on your part. And yes, when I come across yet more pathetic whining about guns, I find it hard to simply pass the idiocy by.

Your screeching racial piety has been quite entertaining. At no time did you address anything else I said. That’s about the only typically “Librul” thing you’ve done, although it was quite enough. And that laughable snipe about education? Funny. I probably have you beat by both IQ points and credit hours, and not a single thing you’ve written can argue against that.

And you absolutely played the race card. You must’ve missed the memo about how that one’s been played a couple of thousand times too many and no longer works. Any time someone accuses another of racism these days, all the accuser accomplishes is announcing his idiocy. I’m sure your mother will be proud to hear of your latest achievement.

You have a problem with reality.
You also have a local problem with guns, a problem you refuse to recognize. That will eventually bite you on the butt. Good luck with that.

“You must’ve missed the memo about how that one’s been played a couple of thousand times too many and no longer works.”

Unless, of course, they are talking about an actual racist in which case it is valid criticism.

“Any time someone accuses another of racism these days, all the accuser accomplishes is announcing his idiocy.”

But especially racists who are so stupid and poorly educated as to use the verb “accomplishes” improperly. “Accomplish” means to achieve or complete successfully. The verbs you are looking for but not finding are “illustrate” – explain or make (something) clear by using examples, charts, pictures, etc. – or “demonstrate” – clearly show the existence or truth of (something) by giving proof or evidence.

Given that there is plenty of evidence demonstrating that you are a racist:

“And that’s the real reason that cowards such as you two bleat about guns: you don’t have the stones to take on the vested interests in the minority communities. Dare I also mention that the overwhelming majority of the local governments whose benign neglect of the areas that most crime happens in are politically aligned with you?

People choose violent crime when there aren’t viable alternatives. That’s what we need to work on, not this silliness.”

Which is a very long winded way of saying “put those darkies to work and their won’t be a gun violence problem”.

White people shoot people too, dingus. Rich people shoot people too. Gun violence – while statistically more prevalent in poor communities – is not limited to poor communities. Or minority communities for that matter. You might have gotten out of that position you put yourself in if you just hadn’t succumbed to the temptation to use that code language “minority communities” in that context. Because, oh yeah!, minority communities have a vested interest in keeping a high level of crime in their neighborhoods. :roll: See, that’s euphemistic loaded language and that is the trademark of a propaganda troll. Your status as such is in no doubt as you yourself admitted you were baiting. “I chose my words deliberately to provoke a reaction”. Then you go on to double down. Once is a mistake. Twice is a coincidence. Three times is a pattern.

And given there is so much evidence illustrating that Mike is not an idiot that I’m not even going to bother to list evidence for what is a manifest truth to regular readers?

I’m going to call bullshit on that and on you.

Be sure to come back any time you want to have your feeble anonymous trollery attempts dismantled and displayed.

Critical scrutiny happens.

That being said, I do think Mike jumped the gun on Eddie. I read Eddie’s original comment as equating thugs with thugs. But on you, thedweeze? He’s got your number.

I’m not sure that I can agree that Dweeze is a racist, crypto or otherwise. If he is the one in NYC, whatever, the comment from there was that a degree of melanin was the ONLY esxential difference between him and them, ie between us all. And thus melanig skin content was of ridiculous value in evaluating people.

However to deny that black neighborhosds (although they ARE in fact heterogeneous) have a higher crime incidence, is also to deny reality, unless NYC changed since yesterday).

The points I thought he made, of which you only quoted a half, was that :

1) The politicians do little or nothing to solve the problems which cause crime, ie lack of: education, opportunities, jobs, a chance to bet on the future.
2) Yes, work for ALL the people in the district
3) All of which would lead to a rise in self-respect and thus respect for others. (He said it better)

You are good at selecting your arguments out of what the opponent offers. I am not sure that your selection is not biased to prove your point.

I offer this as a point for discussion, neither as provocaiton nor as a put-down.

Generally, I feel we all, or at least many of us, lose contact with the fact of our uniqueness.

We assume too much, just because we speak the same language that your use of a word has the same values as my use.

The person who writes has no way to see confusion on your face, nor rising anger, nor agreement. He, like myself,
writes assuming that his thoughts, so clear in his mind, and in the context that he also sees clearly, will be the ones conveyed by his words to you.

What are the chances of that?

The only solutions I see currently is that we do as ElaineM so often does. She asks for elucidation, clarification, exemplification, etc,

Given the opportunity, or rather taking it, Eddie offered clarification of what a good ol’ boy gang could include, and what thugs meant to him. Now both terms mean different things in differcnt parts of America and in different minds..

I believe what the guy in NYC said, was to him perfectly expressed, but I think it wasn’t to me.

All I wish is that we ask before we shoot with words like racist, troll, stupid, ignorance, etc.
No excusings, no rebates are asked for, just give’m time and more rope to eventually hang themselves. They don’t need your help in that.

If we do, I am sure that more real information will flow under the same time, and more understanding, and our
cortisol and blood pressure levels will stay lower.

“Funny. I probably have you beat by both IQ points and credit hours, and not a single thing you’ve written can argue against that”

Dweeze,

I doubt that, but it is of no consequences, since your own words have shown who you are and it isn’t pretty. You offer no refutations against what I said other than rather childish assertions, the equivalent of an eight year old’s
“Nyannh, Nyannh, Nyannh!. It is a pity today that so many like yourself think that debate is merely making unfounded assertions, rather than response to their opponents points and then foolishly declare an unearned victory. You were somewhat amusing for a time, but ow you’re just tedious. Have a wonderful day. :)

“However to deny that black neighborhosds (although they ARE in fact heterogeneous) have a higher crime incidence, is also to deny reality, unless NYC changed since yesterday).”

ID707,

You missed the point entirely. firstly poor neighborhoods in general have more crime, however, my own experience in Black neighborhoods is that they are not as “unsafe” as most White people presume. This is based on my own extensive experiences from 1967 through my retirement in 2004. The second point is his own words introduced into the discussion of the validity of banning certain weapons:

“Put on your big boy pants and face the unpleasant reality that we (that’s all of us) need to address the people who shoot others, even if their skin contains more melanin than ours does. And that’s the real reason that cowards such as you two bleat about guns: you don’t have the stones to take on the vested interests in the minority communities.”

Any reasonable interpretation of that usage is he’s racist.

Gene,

As far as Eddie goes, I disagree, but I’m always willing to be proven wrong and if so I’ll admit it. I did see his comment directly to you, but it wasn’t enough to convince me at this point.

I think it has to do with being a native southerner and the colloquial use of the term “good ol’ boys”. People from the north may not pick up on the usage of that term properly and think it only has a positive connotation when actually it has both a positive and a negative connotation depending upon context. The negative connotative usage is roughly equivalent to either thugs and/or idiots. It’s applied to groups of rednecks, which is an attitude, not necessarily a skin color and in that usage usually also implies stupidity. Examples (-/+): “A bunch o’ good ol’ boys decided that Vern needed a whoopin’ so they up and gave him one.” “Mr. Johnson’s truck got stuck in some gumbo mud but lucky for him a bunch of good ol’ boys coming back from huntin’ saw him and pulled him out.” Both are perfectly acceptable and I’ve heard many real life variations of those usages in my lifetime. Given that Eddie had just mentioned thugs, to me it read as the negative connotation.

Eddie FIRST mentioned good ol’boys as one concept and THEN mentioned thugs as a contrasting one.
Good ol’ boys was not used in a negative connotation.
And his later explanation showed clearly that it was not meant as such. It was a group to which he said he could willingly have been one with, and that it included blacks, mexican, etc.

You missed the point entirely. firstly poor neighborhoods in general have more crime, however, my own experience in Black neighborhoods is that they are not as “unsafe” as most White people presume. This is based on my own extensive experiences from 1967 through my retirement in 2004.”

I mentioned statistics as comparison figures between poor and rich districts. Not living experiences.
Then you offer such terms as “unsafe” and presumptions as to what White (sic) people presume about the poor districts. I did not deny or denigrate your experience.

How or why should I do that? I used another form of measuring, not opinions but statistics. No more.

Admittedly, his use of melanin is still confusing me.
Perhaps Dweeze could explain if you asked. I am curious.
It is either highmindedly noble or dirty “coding”. Which?

“Members of a SWAT team opened fire on an unarmed teenage girl this week when police officers outside of Washington, DC attempted to serve an early morning search warrant.
Myasia Hughley, 18, is recovering from flesh wounds following Thursday morning’s events in District Heights, Maryland. She was asleep in her bedroom at her family house when 15 FBI SWAT agents stormed the house with guns drawn.
“I’m shouting ‘Nobody is armed, nobody has a gun!’ and then all of a sudden I heard ‘She’s got a gun!’ and they just opened fire,” Emory Hughley, Myasia’s father, tells local station WJLA News.
Myasia didn’t have a gun, though, nor did any other member of the Hughley household. The authorities allegedly saw something, and in their minds had enough reason to unleash a barrage of bullets at the girl. Mr. Hughley tells Washington’s NBC News4 that he saw one agent even fire off around seven shots himself using a semi-automatic weapon.
“They almost hit my daughter, man,” he adds to WJLA. “If I hadn’t told her to go back in her room they probably would have shot her.”
“I’ve got eight holes in my wall. One bullet went past my head, almost hit me, ricocheted off my brick wall and some of the shrap metal hit my little daughter in the back of her neck, all for nothing.”
The Hughleys are now asking for answers from the FBI, but so far the authorities have stayed silent as to why they were raiding the home. Mr. Hughley says a day later that he has yet to be told why his house was visited in the early morning hours by more than a dozen heavily armed FBI agents other than they were executing a search warrant. The FBI’s Washington Field Office has deferred from answering pleas from the press to explain what the judge-approved order was for.”